The Virginia House of Delegates approved an assault weapons ban on a party line vote Friday.
Fairfax County Democratic Del. Dan Helmer’s bill would end the sale and transfer of assault firearms manufactured after July 1, 2024. It also prohibits the sale of certain large capacity magazines.
“This bill would stop the sale of weapons similar to those I and many of the other veterans carried in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Helmer said.
Hand guns are where the actual violence is. This is theater.
The problem that I have is, “what is an assault style weapon?” because a ruger 10/22 looks like
, but if you put a scope on it and get the black version, it looks like 
. If you put a pistol grip on it and a larger magazine, it looks like 
, but it’s all the same gun. It does the same things. The shape of the magazine does not affect the gun in any way aside from more ammo. But you don’t have to get a banana clip to do that.To me, if the magazine is bigger than 5, and you can just hold the trigger, it should be illegal. Five rounds with five finger presses is all somone should ever need for hunting.
I don’t know shit about guns nor do I care for them, but that is just my general feeling. It’s the mag size and the speed it can be discharged at that matters.
and you can just hold the trigger, it should be illegal
Good news, full auto and burst fire have been illegal for decades.
Bump stocks, which would bounce the trigger back against your finger causing it to fire effectively like a full auto despite being semi, were banned by trump of all people.
Good news, full auto and burst fire have been illegal for decades.
The pro-gun community does not support this ban
Bump stocks, which would bounce the trigger back against your finger causing it to fire effectively like a full auto despite being semi, were banned by trump of all people.
The pro-gun community fought this for years, despite claiming they were “just a range toy” even after their role in the deadliest mass shooting America had ever seen.
So let’s not pretend the pro-gun community are reasonable people making reasonable concessions.
The pro-gun community opposes this because the intent of 2A was always to protect the ownership of militarily-useful arms.
The gov’t already has the right to raise and provide arms for an army, as part of article 1 of the constitution; claiming that 2A protects the gov’t’s right to arm itself, when it was already granted that right earlier in the constitution, is laughable. Militias were groups of armed citizens, separate from the army, and they were often expected–and legally obligated in some cases–to provide their own arms in serviceable condition, and to train themselves in their use.
The way to effectively curtail violence without curtailing rights is to change the circumstances that lead to violence. Yes, you can cut out lung cancer, and even possibly do a lung transplant, but it’s far, far easier to prevent lung cancer by not smoking than it is to cure it after you’ve been smoking for 50 years. Same with violence; look at the factors that lead people to pick up and use a gun illegally, then work to prevent those, and you’ll have a greater net effect.
The pro-gun community opposes this because the intent of 2A was always to protect the ownership of militarily-useful arms.
Isn’t it cool how the intent of the amendment happens to align exactly with what the pro-gun community wants, which in turn aligns exactly with what is most profitable to the gun lobby?
It’s a good thing it does too, otherwise you’d have to say things like “I want to play with a full auto and I think the consequences will happen to people I don’t care about”.
Militias were groups of armed citizens, separate from the army, and they were often expected–and legally obligated in some cases–to provide their own arms in serviceable condition, and to train themselves in their use.
So do the gun laws in America mandate that a gun is kept in serviceable condition and it’s owner is trained in how to use it? Or have we shrugged off “intent” before the second paragraph?
The way to effectively curtail violence without curtailing rights is to change the circumstances that lead to violence
And while you spend the next 100 years doing that, the best way to minimize the amount of violence those people can inflict is to not sell them semi-automatic weapons after token checks that routinely fail.
I hate to break it to you, but gun control isn’t about stopping all violence forever and never has been. It’s about turning a murder into a black eye.
The fact that you slipped so effortlessly into that straw man makes it clear that you let pro-gun groups tell you what gun control is and then never thought critically about it.
So do the gun laws in America mandate that a gun is kept in serviceable condition and it’s owner is trained in how to use it? Or have we shrugged off “intent” before the second paragraph?
I would fully support laws that required people to train in the arms that they choose to own, and provided the ammunition and expertise as part of income taxes that everyone is supposed to pay. I think that would be great. Heck, let’s bring back marksmanship to schools; there used to be rifle teams in high schools, and I think that we should bring that back along with archery. We are a country that’s heavily armed, but often sorely lacking in the skill to use those arms, and we should fix that to bring the people more in-line with the intent of the 2A.
Yes, ownership is a right, but that right also carries responsibilities. Guns aren’t magic talismans that protect you simply by having one.
The fact that you slipped so effortlessly into that straw man
This isn’t a straw man; I’m steel manning your argument. Your best claim is that you would give that right back once all violence had been eliminated. But that’s an impossibility; even countries that have exceptionally low murder rates, with or without firearms, continually attempt to exert greater control over ownership of the tools of violence whatever those tools are. I’m acquainted with people that live in Finland, a country that has a murder rate that would be the envy of any politician in the US, but each murder committed with a firearm–legally owned or not–sees calls for more and more restrictions on the ownership of arms. What is a murder rate that you would consider to be acceptable such that you wouldn’t attempt to restrict the ownership of firearms of any kind by individuals?
I wonder what database is in place that would allow them to determine what weapons were made after that date. It seems there would be a lot room for getting around that aside from just buying used.
When a firearm is manufactured by a licensed individual or company, it is logged into a book or database. When a firearms retailer receives a firearm, they log it into a book or database. When that firearm is sold, it is logged into a book or database. That is federal law.
Some manufacturers include the date of manufacture with paperwork, but that may only be month and year.
To my knowledge, there is no way for an FFL(licensed firearm retailer) to know a precise date of manufacture without inquiring with the manufacturer if it is not provided with the documents that are supplied.
The law is poorly written, so the real-world effect would be no new sales of specified firearms after the effective date. How restricting the sale of new firearms and not all firearms of the type that they want to restrict does anything is outside of my understanding.
Registeries have been ruled unconstitutional. So thats their shitty workaround.
