[FRIAM] is "assault rifle" a red herring?

[Prof David West]

Once upon a time, Regan era if I remember right, there was an NRA sponsored legislation to require a gun license ala a driver's license. It foundered and was abandoned for multiple reasons, among them: 1) The test, including a firing range component, was to be devised devised and administered by the NRA; 2) debate over the proper age for obtaining a license — ranged from 6 to 21; 3) scope of license, i.e did you need special endorsements for different types of gun (analogous to needing a CDL to drive semis or single/multi engine airplanes; and 4) inter-state reciprocity.

davew


On Mon, Mar 29, 2021, at 9:52 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Hm. If you have to pull the trigger for each round (no bump fire), I 
> can see maybe doubling my rate with the Beretta, maybe even up to 50 
> rounds. But 240? I'd be amazed. Hell, I'd do well just to flex my index 
> finger that many times, that fast, with nothing in my hand. Try it! I 
> got to 250 flexes, but my hand was cramping. For a trained and fit 
> soldier in their 20s or 30s, maybe.
> 
> Regardless, your point's well taken. Even at 100 rpm, that's a lot more 
> inter-person damage than my little gun could do. And given that most 
> people are incompetent (or don't really, deep down, want to kill 
> anyone), lowering the fire rate may have some impact. But it still 
> seems like such a weak gesture, more like a campaign slogan than an 
> effective way to lower deaths by gun (which are dominated by suicides 
> anyway - a glacially slow revolver works well enough for suicide).
> 
> Waiting periods and mandatory background checks (for every sale) seem 
> to have so much more bite. I'd like to see a licensing process. You 
> have to take a test to drive, why not require competence tests for gun 
> ownership?
> 
> On 3/28/21 2:41 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> > Granting all you say, there is one other aspect — rate of discharge. You can empty your Beretta in the time it takes my to fire 3-4 shots from my 357 revolver. A legal AR can probably discharge a full 250 round mega-clip in the time it takes you to empty, reload, and empty your Beretta. An illegal, full-auto, AR can get close to a single instance of your pistol being emptied.
> > 
> > Mr Macho would eschew most long guns for the same reason as most pistols — too slow to fill the air with lead. Also does not need to worry about skill. In WWII the ration of bullets to causalities was 25,000/1. Because of closed and highly compacted spaces your average mass shooter does better 200-500/1 but still relies on luck rather than skill.
> > 
> > Assassins (mob hit men, etc) prefer a 22 and achieve pretty much a 1/1 ratio. Effectiveness, not posturing, is what matters to them.
> 
> -- 
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
> 
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