Straw poll. U.S. president. Who would you vote for?

[TheButterZone]

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Bernie_Sanders_Gun_Control.htm
"Voted YES on banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets."

Weasel words "high-capacity" and "large capacity". In reality, standard capacity for most semi-automatic guns is over 10, so banning them would infringe the human right to self-defense into oblivion.

Sanders belongs in prison, not the White House, or any other hall of government.

[tvbcof]

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Bernie_Sanders_Gun_Control.htm
"Voted YES on banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets."

Weasel words "high-capacity" and "large capacity". In reality, standard capacity for most semi-automatic guns is over 10, so banning them would infringe the human right to self-defense into oblivion.

Sanders belongs in prison, not the White House, or any other hall of government.

It's kind of a non issue, except among those who are obsessive about firearms.

You have to decide first whether you want to have some line drawn on which weapons an individual can easily purchase, and then if applicable where to have the line.

Some people might think no line should be drawn. If a person wants a very heavy fully automatic military style gun they would say fine. A rocket launcher. Missiles. Whatever.

At the other extreme are people who say "no guns whatsoever, for anyone".

Bernie Sanders looks to be in the middle on this issue. You think he's too far in the middle though?

Lots and lots of people in the US are, if not 'obsessive', at least highly interested in the 2nd amendment.

I am a strong supporter of the amendment for a variety of reasons and always have been (though historically I've spend some time trolling 'gun loons' just because it's easy...or was back in the usenet days before people wised up to trolls.)

If the right can be accused of being fixated on gun issues, the left is many times more at fault here.  Problems with guns are on the decline due to common sense measure put in place decades ago (chiefly, more severe punishment for crimes in which firearms are a factor.)  As far as I am concerned it is the left who is creating the impulse on this wedge issue and who are also exceedingly active at propagandizing people (especially young people) over this non-issue.  I felt that way even before I stopped considering myself a hard left individual.  It's always been one of a few areas where I always disagreed with 'my people', and the tone from the left lately has become so shrill that I'm getting genuinely suspicious of their motives.

I recognize the 'danger' of such things as background checks which bother right-wingers, but my at the end of the day I'm not exactly broken-hearted if background checks deter people who have a criminal history from guns.  It's a compromise that I can live with even though when the rubber meets the road it won't make much difference.  Criminals will always have guns in the U.S. for the simple reason that they need them to exist in their environments.  These were the findings of the FBI studies and the rational for the (very effective) policy of attacking the problem of gun violence as they did.

I'm past the tipping point where I now slightly dis-favor background checks because I finally feel that having more guns in general circulation no matter who's hands they are in is a net positive in our society.  One can only watch so many youtube vids of our militarized 'police' brown-shirts having their dogs rip a guy's face off for no good reason before it becomes a reasonable theoretical possibility that we'll end up being forced to use them in the manner envisioned by the authors of the 2nd at some point in the future.  Thanks for nothing Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder.

At this point I favor zero further restrictions on anything no matter how common sense (ammo type, clip capacity, etc.)  The reason for this is simply that it is crystal clear that the left is engaged in pure politics and the so-called 'slippery slope' argument holds a great deal of water.

[RitzBitzz]

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Bernie_Sanders_Gun_Control.htm
"Voted YES on banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets."

Weasel words "high-capacity" and "large capacity". In reality, standard capacity for most semi-automatic guns is over 10, so banning them would infringe the human right to self-defense into oblivion.

Sanders belongs in prison, not the White House, or any other hall of government.

I feel like if you get a background check you should be able to have basically whatever magazine capacity as long as its not insane.

[TheButterZone]

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Bernie_Sanders_Gun_Control.htm
"Voted YES on banning high-capacity magazines of over 10 bullets."

Weasel words "high-capacity" and "large capacity". In reality, standard capacity for most semi-automatic guns is over 10, so banning them would infringe the human right to self-defense into oblivion.

Sanders belongs in prison, not the White House, or any other hall of government.

It's kind of a non issue, except among those who are obsessive about firearms.

You have to decide first whether you want to have some line drawn on which weapons an individual can easily purchase, and then if applicable where to have the line.

Some people might think no line should be drawn. If a person wants a very heavy fully automatic military style gun they would say fine. A rocket launcher. Missiles. Whatever.

At the other extreme are people who say "no guns whatsoever, for anyone".

Bernie Sanders looks to be in the middle on this issue. You think he's too far in the middle though?

"Obsessive about firearms?" What the fuck? Do you give zero fucks about keeping yourself and your fellow victimless human beings alive, let alone safe from criminal harm?

Slippery slope bullshit irrelevant to individual self-defense, needs no refutation.

The "middle"? What the fuck? The line was drawn and he crossed it by googolplex light years, by voting to ban the most common component required for function of the modern quintessential human right to self-defense tool, the semi-automatic firearm, out of ONLY mentally-sound, sober law-abiders' hands. You cannot get more pro-criminal than that, short of banning the the modern quintessential human right to self-defense tool in its entirety (again, out of ONLY mentally-sound, sober law-abiders' hands)!

Welcome to my ignore list.

I feel like if you get a background check you should be able to have basically whatever magazine capacity as long as its not insane.

Unfortunately the background check system is rife with false positives, system crashes and delays, all of which only infringe mentally-sound, sober law-abiders out of their human right to self-defense, and do not deter a single victimful criminal, who is not subject to background checks.

And if we allow emotional weasel-words like "insane" to infringe human rights, then the criminal safety advocates running government will determine it's "insane" to allow only mentally-sound, sober law-abiders to have magazines with more than 1 round, or any lawful firearm ownership, at all. And the courts, part of government, will rubber-stamp that infringement until the cows come home.

All functional magazines shall not be infringed. All jammomatic magazines should be recalled by their manufacturers and replaced or refunded.

[bigtransaction]

I thought this was going to be a real poll.  I can not find good candidates.

I want my Rand Paul!   He even accept bitcoin!

[galdur]

...by voting to ban the most common component required for function of the modern quintessential human right to self-defense tool, the semi-automatic firearm...

Yeah well, I guess a semi-automatic shotgun would be more than sufficient for most home defense purposes. Unless they expect to be attacked by a squad or two.

[TheButterZone]

...by voting to ban the most common component required for function of the modern quintessential human right to self-defense tool, the semi-automatic firearm...

Yeah well, I guess a semi-automatic shotgun would be more than sufficient for most home defense purposes. Unless they expect to be attacked by a squad or two.

Except you...
can't just swing a shotgun in the general direction of your target without wasting ammo, you actually have to hit the perp(s)
might not be able to wield a shotgun due to a disability
might not be able to maneuver it well enough in your home
can't carry a shotgun every waking hour without suffering back/shoulder pain
might not get lucky enough to make it to your safe room, have enough time to unsafe it, and get behind cover
won't have more than 12+1 rounds in a shotgun (as far as I know)

I could go on...

[RitzBitzz]

...by voting to ban the most common component required for function of the modern quintessential human right to self-defense tool, the semi-automatic firearm...

Yeah well, I guess a semi-automatic shotgun would be more than sufficient for most home defense purposes. Unless they expect to be attacked by a squad or two.

unless your using slugs birdshot isn't going to help you.

[galdur]

Maybe. But I doubt that being hit by bird shot at short range is going to help an attacker very much either. Probably will get his attention to other things than attacking you.

[TheButterZone]

Maybe. But I doubt that being hit by bird shot at short range is going to help an attacker very much either. Probably will get his attention to other things than attacking you.

Sane home invaders do not invade when people are home, because they do not want to be shot. If you're needing to shoot a home invader, they will likely be numb to pain from drugs/alcohol, or wearing body armor. If all you have is birdshot, you might as well blow a feather at them if you're not going to blast their face with the birdshot in rapid succession.

[galdur]

Obviously shooting someone is the last resort before they attack you and your family. Yeah, I´d much rather shoot them with bird shot than outright execute them on the spot. Better to leave that to the police.

Birdshot Home Defense Gel Test

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97sjv11yesc

[tvbcof]

Obviously shooting someone is the last resort before they attack you and your family. Yeah, I´d much rather shoot them with bird shot than outright execute them on the spot. Better to leave that to the police.

I'm hardly an expert, but here is my philosophy.  Keep a rubber slug as the first round.  This is evidence of the (hopefully true) sentiment that the homeowner is not very interested in killing someone and would rather them just go away.  I personally have a vastly higher likelihood of needing to discourage bears than anything else, and I needed to do so last year.  Last fall I got a perfectly clean shot at the ribs of a mamma bear and I never saw her again.  The slug was directly below the tree next to my deck that she was using as an observation pole to keep an eye on me (which is how I know that she took all of the energy of the thing.)

A second nicety about having a rubber slug be number one is that there is a pretty good chance that were my weapon to mis-fire either in my hands or some curious kid who happened across my gun it would result in a well learned lesson rather than a fatal accident.

The second round in my shotguns is a slug.  If I keep my wits about me, access to that option takes a fraction of a second.  In this case I have a pretty good chance of stopping someone breaking through my door before they actually do so.  There is also a chance that by judicious use of a slug I could keep a car from going very far and thus produce an opportunity for me and my neighbors to have a conversation with the not so clever evildoer who was messing around up a dead end road where probably everyone has at least one gun handy most of the time.

[galdur]

A second nicety about having a rubber slug be number one is that there is a pretty good chance that were my weapon to mis-fire either in my hands or some curious kid who happened across my gun it would result in a well learned lesson rather than a fatal accident.

Yepp, excellent point. Otherwise points very well taken as well.

[TheButterZone]

Rubber slugs are only less-lethal, not non-lethal. At accidental/point blank range, a kid will likely die from the trauma.

[RitzBitzz]

Rubber slugs are only less-lethal, not non-lethal. At accidental/point blank range, a kid will likely die from the trauma.

Especially if it hit him in the eye/head because he was looking down the barrel.

[tvbcof]

Rubber slugs are only less-lethal, not non-lethal. At accidental/point blank range, a kid will likely die from the trauma.

I would hesitate to use the term 'likely', at least not without some statistics which a brief google search did not turn up, but basically this is true enough to stress that the 'less-lethal' aspect is not a replacement for standard safety in storing firearms.

Whether a kid or an adult, if I had a choice I'd take my chances with a rubber slug vs. birdshot.  At point-blank I think it is safe to say about almost any type of birdshot that death from trauma is 'likely', especially to a child.  Obviously it has a lot to do with where one gets hit.  Somewhere along the way I saw a media piece about a little girl who lost her jaw to a curious brother and the parent's shotgun.

There are some amusing vids on youtube of dudes shooting one another with these homeowner variety rubber slugs.  The resulting bruises look pretty painful.

edit: slight.