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Aswad -> RE: 2nd amendment (7/26/2012 12:32:14 AM)
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ORIGINAL: lovmuffin
I'm not sure what you mean by security blanket.
That much is clear.
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If it means people running out buying guns because they feel threatened by some possible violent act, paranoia because of the recent tragedy then I would have to disagree.
By all means disagree, but I would appreciate you providing a link to a credible source, because the people we've had asking the gun merchants down there relate that the people at the point of sale are saying their customers are buying guns for self defense due to feeling unsafe after the massacre. It isn't the least bit unusual to feel threatened after something like that, so I consider it a quite plausible explanation. It's a human response, and one I would suggest refraining from referencing as paranoia. The problem lies in how they're dealing with that feeling, not in having it.
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The reason they're out buying guns is because they're afraid of a new influx of gun control laws, state and federal, and they want to snap up on whatever they think may be unavailable in the future.
That is an even worse argument. For better or for worse, gun control laws are never enacted trivially in the USA, because they alienate voters and lobbyists alike, except for the relatively small gun control lobby. Thus, any new gun control law would take a long time to enact, with ample press coverage, leaving a lot of time to consider a new purchase before the law enters into effect. Stockpiling guns on a theory that the world might suddenly start working in precisely the opposite way of how it has worked in the past is not a behavior that I would see as being to the credit of those who exhibit it.
For that matter, there is presumably a reason they haven't purchased those guns earlier. One of those reasons may be the cost of the guns in question, and it is most likely going to be less of a detrimental influence on their personal economy to defer purchases until a new law is actually on the horizon, so as to spread the cost over time by setting aside money instead of digging into savings.
The final nail in the coffin is that people are rushing to buy other weapons than the one primarily used in the massacre, and a law enacted as a response to the massacre would be directed at the sort of weapon used, not at the ones they actually purchased. It seems untenable that people would be buying things like handguns and bolt action rifles in order to avoid a restriction on assault rifles (and their civilian counterparts, which are not bolt action), and the pro gun lobby would never accept a law targetted at the weapons they're currently stockpiling.
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Unless of course that's what you meant by security blanket, then I won't disagree. The spike in gun sales I'm sure is going on everywhere outside of Colorado too.
My sources say: no, it isn't.
What are yours saying?
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The gun banners started concentrating their efforts on these so called 'assault weapons" instead of the handguns they had been focusing their efforts on at the time.
Out of curiosity, since the gun control lobby will continue to exist, would you prefer they focus on handguns or assault weapons?
(Yes, I realize "assault weapon" is a legal term, not a firearms term. I'm using it in the sense of the legal term here.)
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There were so many politicians calling for bans on semi-automatics the gun market went crazy. The sales of military style semi-autos went through the roof including high capacity magazines, ammunition, accessories and all the rest of it.
You will note that what you're describing is what I referred to by "on the horizon", i.e. that things have progressed to a point where a ban is credible.
I've heard nothing to support a ban is credible after the Colorado shootings.
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Then after Obama won the presidency a most unusual thing happened. The sale of ammunition spiked.
Would you care to speculate on why?
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I would have to say at this point gun owners are firmly entrenched.
I have not disputed that.
If you go back a few pages, I explicitly said that this has to be a basic premise for anyone attempting to find a compromise between the gun control lobby and the pro gun lobby. The latter has the guns, and will not give them up blindly. The former proposes changes, and has to make those propositions palatable if they want to get anywhere. Anything else is just noise.
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I couldn't begin to estimate how much modern military type hardware there is out there in the possession of private citizens but I'm sure it's enough to keep the market going for quite some time.
If the sales of new firearms is significantly curbed, the pro gun lobby will lose a ton of funding and thus lose a lot of ground, which may well lead to sweeping changes when they lack the support that the gun control lobby has (and which is less based on funding from corporate sources, thus being less vulnerable). As such, the market could well collapse.
Realistically, though, the illicit market will remain large. Any cartel house worth a damn has more gear than a police department, for instance. Where I live, gun control laws are so strict there would be an armed uprising if anyone tried to copy it in the USA. Even so, I can go out and get myself a full auto assault rifle, a good scope, a few thousand rounds of ammo and some grenades with little effort if I want to. Enough to outfit a small militia can be had in a couple of hours, at most. And we don't have a country in a state of civil war at our borders. All our neighbouring countries have similarly stringent gun control laws, and all crossings over land are fairly well guarded. There's still no shortage of weapons, including military hardware.
Myself, I prefer rifles, and my main issue with the laws here is actually that the storage requirements are insane. Forget keeping it in a locked closet or the like. Here, you need a half inch of steel plate, quad bolted to floor and wall, with a lock that is approved by testing its resistance to a master locksmith, and police are allowed to conduct random inspections plus you give up the right not to be subject to search and seizure without due cause. Budget models for a single rifle sometimes go on sale for like $1.000 or so, securing only the bolt and the ammunition. Most models are at least twice that figure if you're going to store the rifle itself in there. Added to the $5.000 cost of a modest rifle, that sort of thing raises the barrier to entry a bit. For a hobbyist, that's maybe a year worth of ammunition in extra starting costs if you're lucky and have planned the whole thing out well in advance.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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