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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Max White]

That movie always bugged me. Moral of the story: Technology is bullshit and doesn't give you -real- powers, and you're only worth something if everyone else isn't. :I

Yea... I still think Syndrome was actually a really good guy driven insane by the way he was treated by others. Makes you wonder about the motivations of some of the other villains who just went away as soon as the super heroes did... Perhaps all they ever wanted was an egalitarian society?

Also he could fly.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

More terrifying, I read here that a shooting occurred, and I actually treated it the same way I would a regular event, like a court ruling or something. No worrying, no obsessive news-checking, none of the stuff I do when an "emergency" occurs.

The Onion actually made a decent point about this back during the Boston Bombing.

[Owlbread]

Well, if I understand correctly, the AR15 can be illegally modified to be fully automatic considering its roots to actual military assault rifles.

This guy would have to be a very competent gunsmith to do that, he'd be better off just buying a fully automatic rifle with a tax stamp.

Anyway, remember, the government went through this whole ordeal changing the definition of "assault" to be applicable in almost every situation concerning firearms so they can use it as a hotword. I'm fairly certain "assault pistols" are possible.

But that isn't really true is it? There is no definition of "assault weapon" that I know of besides the ones set out in the Clinton ban that basically said "if the gun looks scary i.e. it has a folding stock and a pistol grip or something then it's "assault".

"Assault rifles" are rifles that have selective fire i.e. can be semi or fully automatic, or burst fire, and have a detachable magazine and fire an intermediate cartridge. If the gun is semi automatic only, as all AR-15s are, then it is not an assault rifle. It's just a rifle. That is the universally accepted, non-partisan definition. If we're going to start calling everything that looks scary "assault" then hunters had better hold on tight to their "sniper rifles".

[Mephansteras]

[politician]
Well, since "Assault" in legal terms means that you feel your safely is threatened, and any gun being pointed at you threatens your safety, then all guns are 'Assault'!
[/politicain]

[Owlbread]

Assault revolvers.

Assault derringers. Outstanding.

[Max White]

Fine, I'll weigh in on the damn gun debate. Why do I do things I know to be unwise?


Is there any actual evidence that higher rates of gun ownership translate to lower rates of crime? I mean we can sit here and talk all day about our little 'ideals' and what we personally think is 'safe' and who is an idiot for classifying what as what. We would debate for decades and never get anywhere, just look at the US.
How about instead we get all empirical up in here, fo shizzle. What evidence is there linking the rate and type of gun ownership to various crimes, both gun crimes and non-gun crimes.

[Owlbread]

I never try to argue in favour of gun rights on the basis that they make things safer, only as a matter of civil liberty.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fine, I'll weigh in on the damn gun debate. Why do I do things I know to be unwise?


Is there any actual evidence that higher rates of gun ownership translate to lower rates of crime? I mean we can sit here and talk all day about our little 'ideals' and what we personally think is 'safe' and who is an idiot for classifying what as what. We would debate for decades and never get anywhere, just look at the US.
How about instead we get all empirical up in here, fo shizzle. What evidence is there linking the rate and type of gun ownership to various crimes, both gun crimes and non-gun crimes.

That's the really strange part. There has been no significant evidence that rates of gun ownership effect crime at all. You can pretty easily find politicized think tank studies claiming it goes one way or another, but at the end of the day what few impartial investigations there have been suggest it goes up and down without changes in gun ownership.

So basically, we don't know.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

That's the really strange part. There has been no significant evidence that rates of gun ownership effect crime at all. You can pretty easily find politicized think tank studies claiming it goes one way or another, but at the end of the day what few impartial investigations there have been suggest it goes up and down without changes in gun ownership.

So basically, we don't know.

The studies fail to take into account that guns prevent bad things from happening with their built-in flux capacitors.

[Max White]

Hoo boy, what happened in the mid 90s?

Anyway I would really like to see figures based on a more global survey, in the basis that as we have already discussed, gun laws are very much undermined in the US by the possibility of buying fire arms and crossing state.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Hoo boy, what happened in the mid 90s?

That's another unknown. People were predicting an apocalyptic crime wave which never ended up coming. There are a few hypotheses:

-The War on Drugs is working! (Yeah fucking right.)
-The Assault Weapon Ban is working! (The major decrease was in things that have nothing to do with assault rifles, so no.)
-Doom was released for MS-DOS. (Well...you can't exactly kill people when you're spending all your time playing video games, so maybe.)
-Roe v. Wade reached its 20th anniversary. (The authors of Freakanomics really like this one, with the argument being that the decline in unwanted children lead to fewer people being around who would be likely to turn to crime.)

[Owlbread]

Ninja'd by MetalSlimeHunt unfortunately. Yes, everything he said.

[Leafsnail]

"Assault rifles" are rifles that have selective fire i.e. can be semi or fully automatic, or burst fire, and have a detachable magazine and fire an intermediate cartridge. If the gun is semi automatic only, as all AR-15s are, then it is not an assault rifle. It's just a rifle. That is the universally accepted, non-partisan definition. If we're going to start calling everything that looks scary "assault" then hunters had better hold on tight to their "sniper rifles".

You're being needlessly pedantic, and also some models of AR-15 do have selective fire.

[Owlbread]

I am not being pedantic, I am trying to be accurate with my terminology and this entire debate is based around terminology. What is going to be banned is an "assault rifle" or "assault weapon", and exactly what an assault rifle is becomes very important.

I apologise, there are AR-15s that do have selective fire but none of them are legal in the same way that bog standard AR-15s are, those are military models. They tend to be called M16s as opposed to just AR-15s. Instead, you would need to go through a lengthy process involving 200 dollar tax stamps and registration. The guns are also very expensive, hence why "assault rifles" are rare in the USA.

[misko27]

Fuck guys, you could power the government with all this rapid typing.

I am not being pedantic I am trying to be accurate with my terminology and this entire debate is based around terminology. What is going to be banned is an "assault rifle" or "assault weapon", and exactly what an assault rifle is becomes very important.

You know there is a legal definition alright? Lemme pull it up. Assault rifles are not illegal, assualt weapons are, which have a more specific definition regarding it's automatic nature.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 defined certain firearms as assault weapons based on the features they possessed. This included semi-automatic rifles with a detachable magazine and at least two of these features: a pistol grip, a folding or telescoping stock, a flash suppressor or threaded barrel, a bayonet mount, or a muzzle-mounted grenade launcher. It also included semi-automatic pistols with a detachable magazine and at least two of these features: a magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip, a threaded barrel, a barrel shroud, or an unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more. Additionally defined as assault weapons were semi-automatic shotguns with a rotating cylinder, or with at least two of these features: a pistol grip, a folding or telescoping stock, a detachable magazine, or a fixed magazine that can hold more than five rounds.

That law was not renewed at it's first renewal date in 2004, and is no longer in effect. However, the 5 or 6 states that do ban them operate using these definitions, sometimes adding or subtracting their own, or requiring a greater or lesser number of features.