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The Center for American Progress reports
Before Stephen Paddock opened fire at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip last October, killing 58 and wounding hundreds, most Americans probably hadn't heard of bump-fire stocks--add-ons that lets a semiautomatic rifle fire as quickly as a machine gun. Until that mass shooting, they were a novelty known only among firing-range enthusiasts and Cool Gun YouTube.
Within months of Las Vegas, lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation[1] to outlaw the devices, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF, announced plans to ban them through regulation.[2]
But gun control advocates warn bump stocks are just one part of a much bigger problem. A flood of new gun technologies is pushing the envelope on what a civilian can legally own, skirting laws that have kept the most dangerous weapons off the street for decades.
[...] Weapons like machine guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles and shotguns are regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and subsequent amendments. To own one of those weapons, a civilian has to go through a lengthy approval process and pay a special tax. The job of deciding whether a gun falls under NFA's restrictions falls to ATF.
Gun manufacturers have used the law's technicalities to create guns that are just as powerful, and deadly, as restricted weapons but without the added tax and strict regulations.
Take the SAINT, by Springfield Armory. It's an AR-15 with a 30-round magazine and a 7.5-inch barrel. That's shorter than the legal rifle length under federal law. But instead of a shoulder stock, the SAINT has a "stabilizing brace" or "forearm brace"--a device designed to attach to a shooter's forearm for one-handed firing rather than resting against their shoulder. By ATF's definition, the SAINT is a pistol, not a rifle, because it isn't meant to be fired from the shoulder. So anyone who can pass a federal background check can buy one online for $989.
[...] Stabilizing braces aren't the only new gun tech to skirt around the National Firearms Act. Franklin Armory's Binary Trigger System fires two rounds with every shot--one when the trigger is depressed and one when it's released, doubling the rate of fire. Like bump stocks and stabilizing braces, binary triggers aren't currently regulated under the National Firearms Act.
In one YouTube video, a man uses a binary trigger to fire a 30-round magazine in less than five seconds. In another, a binary trigger beats out a fully-automatic weapon.
[1] Bogus link in TFA. Fixed in TFS.
[2] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:11AM (43 children)
Ditto everything Bradley13 says. Guns don't kill, people kill. And, if you take away all of the guns, people will still find a way to kill. Back in the day of Cain and Abel, there were no guns. I guess there weren't even any good knives. Just rocks and clubs, and murder was already a problem.
Change the culture, people. Hold individuals accountable for their actions. Liberal attitudes toward crime are going nowhere. Of course, neither are conservative attitudes. Let's stop criminalizing petty crimes, and severely punish serious crimes, up to and including capital punishment and various forms of corporal punishment.
Lounging around in a prison cell isn't putting the smallest of dents in crime statistics.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:46AM (14 children)
But mass murder wasn't a problem. We're not going to stop every murder. But we can try to stop, or greatly reduce, the mass murders. At least that's a good place to start.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:55AM (6 children)
But that's not much of a problem for the proposed cure. Why trample on the rights of hundreds of millions of people because a few dozen people die now and then? Why destroy our societies because there is a small problem that happens to get a lot of media attention? Should we hand our world to the intelligence agencies because the terrorists might win? Should we imprison a generation of people because kids might get high? Should we require till the end of time people to take their shoes off when boarding planes because one time this guy tried to blow up a plane?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:30PM (2 children)
^ im no gun enthisiast but we have passed the point of readon. I almost prefer to ban guns in any way becausr it will only encourage more destructive methods like running people over or a dozen other ways lots of people could be killed. Gun licensing is important and i think fair, you want to carry aeound the ability to kill someone? Better proe you know how to properly handle a firearm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:50PM
Were spell checkers banned in your neck of the woods?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:21PM
Personally, I don't want to carry around the ability to kill someone. I want to carry around the ability to stop someone from killing me.
If you don't want me to be able to stop someone from killing me, then you want me to die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:23PM
Mass murder has been a bigger problem at every point in history compared to now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:08PM (1 child)
because "gun control" will "destroy societies". hahaHAHAHAHhahahaha...wow. how *did* humanity exist before the invention of the gun. quite well actually.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:00PM
Let me remind you again what "gun control" means here. It means trampling on the rights of hundreds of millions of people because a few people died in a school shooting. When you're willing to severely compromise the integrity of a democracy merely because bad things occasionally happen, that is a recipe for the destruction of the society. No matter how much you harm your society, it won't prevent bad things from happening, and thus, there will be rationalization for the next decline in freedom.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:45PM (2 children)
> But mass murder wasn't a problem.
But murder was a bigger problem. What percentage of the world population did Cain kill vs. say Hitler, or Stalin?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:24PM (1 child)
Genghis Kahn had no guns, yet was responsible for the deaths of millions.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:39PM
Oh for fucks sake. How fucking retarded do you have to be to bring this shit up?
1. Genghis Kahn was a leader of a number of people.
2. Hitler was a leader of a number of people
3. Stalin was a leader of a number of people
4. Donald Trump is a leader of a fucked up nation too.
So, if Donald Trump kills millions of people, it's not because he got a gun and went ape nuts with it in Las Vegas. But a single fuck-head can pick up an arsenal and injure and kill 500+, or shoot up a school killing dozens in kindergarten. If people want to stop fucked up leaders, then maybe they shouldn't elect them in the first place or follow them in the 2nd place. But if you want to stop fuckheads from killing dozens of people, maybe don't give people guns that allow them to do that?
But I know, it's fucking impossible to get through to irrational people. They will keep bringing up irrelevant info about "what about Hitler?", "what about KKK?", "what about melanoma?", "what about retards on the internet?". How about keep your brains on *topic* which is "guns and their use in mass murders".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:41PM (2 children)
Actually Murder rates are down [mises.org], nearly to historic lows. (Foreign source intentionaly sited to avoid the usual argument.)
The mass murders and suicides among young people seem to happen near the end of school years, as people realize they are in a hopeless situation, likely to fail, or find themselves mercilessly mocked.
So do we prevent hopelessness (somehow)?
Or do we teach people to grow a skin?
Or do we bring back corporal punishment so mid-course corrections involve something other than a "talking to"?
We've tried the helicopter parent, everybody is a winner, nobody gets embarrassed, approaches for 40 years now.
Clearly none of these work to prevent mass murders. Desperate kids aren't afraid of dying.
Nobody has a believable explanation for the 30 year spike in murders finally tapering off in the late 90s, and
nobody has a believable explanation for the (perceived) mass murder spike yo today.
But it sure as hell wasn't gun availability, or even full auto gun availability.
(same source as above).
And when you get right down to it, the mass shootings are ALREADY included in the murder totals.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @09:34AM
One hypothesis has the start of the spike correlating with cars become ubiquitous, and the end matching with the end of leaded fuel. Nobody knows exactly how, but there is some suspicion that the brain damage caused by lead can turn people more violent. Disclaimer: Correlation does not imply causation and all that, but at least they are trying to explain it.
Improved news coverage, 24/7 news and most of all, every news channel focusing on pulling in viewers by showing more gory news than the competition.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 25 2018, @05:52PM
Actually Murder rates are down [mises.org], nearly to historic lows. (Foreign source intentionaly sited to avoid the usual argument.)
The data source for that graph is the FBI... And it's rather odd that you would pick a data set that ends in 2014 given there's more recent data out. Hmm....I wonder why that could be...
US homicide rate spiked nearly 8% in 2016, FBI report finds [cnn.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @08:54PM
If you are willing to die, as many mass murderers are, the easy way to take out 40 people is to become a bus driver. More time and expense, not worse than a college degree, gets you a large jet aircraft that you can aim at a skyscraper or stadium.
If you would rather be sneaky, there are plenty of other options. Derailing trains is easy. You can buy gasoline. Nurses sometimes manage to kill dozens. Explosives are easy to make if you've ever done high school science labs. Rosary peas are absurdly toxic. Certain mercury compounds are absurdly toxic. A school stabber (not shooter) in China got about 50 kids.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by theluggage on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:05PM (26 children)
...but people with guns (esp. semi-automatic/bump stock/binary trigger bullet sprayers) can kill a lot more than people without. Nobody is claiming that gun control will end murder forever, or even stop some nut walking in to work/school with a machette - but fewer people will die when it does happen, and the attacker is easier to stop non-fatally (making going postal less attractive as a form of suicide).
...and, yes, the UK currently has a "knife problem" by UK murder rate standards that would be far, far worse if the perpetrators had easy access to guns... If people are using knives because they can't get guns the that's an an improvement: you need a very long knife for a drive-by stabbing... and the knife crime thing seems to be suspiciously strongly correlated with cuts in policing and pressure to reduce stop-and-search tactics, hampering enforcement of the law on knives (which also means it gets disproportionate press attention).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:42PM (1 child)
Poison, explosives, moving vehicle, cut the supports of a bridge...there are innumerable ways to kill a lot of people.
What is the definition of "killing?" Is financial fraud a form of killing when it deprives people of their resources? What about stress? Is not paying a person what they are due which results in dead by heart attack killing?
There is no way to prevent mass murder. Period. Full stop. It is a part of human behavior just as it is part of the behavior of any other living organism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:52PM
There is no way to prevent mass murder. Period.
You can't prevent the generation of garbage either, yet we pay for people to pick it up everyday. Maybe you could make a statement by leaving the corpse at the scene until they pile up so high you can't see over them.
(Score: 2, Informative) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:56PM (14 children)
Yup. And then there's always this [wordpress.com], which is pretty hard to argue against.
If you want it as a graph of actual figures, take [sciencenews.org] your pick [vox-cdn.com]...
Note that I've linked to data from actual established science/news sites, not "facts" from iloveguns.org, realactualhonestgunfacts.com, and similar.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @01:50PM (12 children)
Isn't that cute? Where is the graph for the REST of the world? Eastern Europe? Russia? African nations? The Carribean? Mexico?
Like so many others, VOX wants to define an elite club, and point at the US saying "You guys are the worst!"
Get all of the world on the same graph. Or, just get all of Europe on that same graph. All of Europe, and all of the US, or break all of the European countries down individually, and compare them to all of the US states individually.
Cherry picking doesn't impress me at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:17PM (11 children)
Exactly. Let's compare the US to somewhere like an active war zone, perhaps Syria or Afghanistan. That'll allow (some of) us to continue denying that we have a massive gun problem.
Or anything really, just as long as we can keep denying the problem. See the first link in my posting.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:32PM (10 children)
So, eastern Europe is an active war zone - got it.
(Score: 4, Touché) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:38PM
You misspelled "lalalala I'm not listening lalalala".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:43PM (7 children)
Damn, hit reply too early: Being an American, you're probably not aware that the Ukraine, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia are in eastern Europe. Or possibly even that they exist. They're certainly active war zones though.
Well, not sure if Fox, Infowars, or Breitbart have mentioned them, so you may not know that either.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday June 24 2018, @03:45PM (5 children)
To other Americans reading this: I'm making fun of this one particular guy because it's such an easy target, not y'all in general :-).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:07PM (4 children)
Easy target. You might want to do a search of this site. Use my nick, and the terms "Georgia Ukraine Ossetia Crimea Russia". Yes, I'm aware that much of eastern Europe is in turmoil. And I'm also making fun of you Euros who distance yourself from your own neighbors. "Oh, but that's not Europe", or "Yes, but we live in the CIVILIZED portion of Europe!"
Again, I say stop cherry picking. The US and Europe are a reasonable comparison. The US has communities that has almost no violent crime. If you insist on cherry picking, I can do the same thing, and find statistics that make London look like a world class hellhole.
Next - you'll claim that there is no war in the US, like there is in Ukraine. And, I'll have to point to the statistics on our southern border. Declared or not, there is a war, right here.
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/ [borderlandbeat.com]
Mainstream media won't give you any of that news. They don't notice when a bus is hijacked, then months later, all 50, 60, or even more passengers are found in a mass grave. Yes, we can legitimately compare our statistics to Eastern Europe, along with Western Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:33PM (3 children)
Ooooh, ok it makes more sense why you and some others around here sound so crazy. You believe there is a literal was r on the Mexican border. Wow.
When did economic migrants become soldiers again?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:38PM (1 child)
Click the link, and read. Lemme think a moment. The US lost about 40,000 people in Vietnam, over a period of about - uhhh - 15 years, I think. Mexico has lost more people in ten years, than the US lost in Vietnam.
If you read some of the stories at the link provided, you may choose to remain silent, and thought a fool, than to open your mouth to prove that you are a fool.
Yes, there is a war on our southern border. You may have heard references to a "war on drugs". If you step across our southern border, you will have entered the active battleground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:11PM
Good to know how nuts you RWNJs are. Every country has problems with crime and smuggling, only the US has turned it into another wsrmachine profit mechanism. You brainwashed foo!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:08PM
And you should too. It is a war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:03PM
Not that people are currently shooting, but South Ossetia and Abkhazia are clearly in Asia. Are you trying to determine continent by race? The line runs through the Black Sea.
Ukraine is more questionable. If we say that the line splits the country though, that very neatly puts the war zone in Asia and the peaceful part in Europe.
None of the above are in the EU or in any of the other sorts of regional agreements associated with Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:10PM
Ukraine? Upper North Macedonia? Don't try to play stupid, Runaway! You're not smart enough to pull it off. Oh, and we're coming to take your gun. Mandatory Mental Health Checks, coming soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:37PM
Ever heard of Correlation vs Causation?
Also best part of your stupid graphic #1 is the caveat of "in developed world." When you have to add a qualifier to make your point, there is a very big chance it's fucking bullshit. Maybe there is something else different between US and European countries, other than guns.
You want to cherry-pick? How about you break down the Homicide rates by Race... Oh what's wrong then? Is it that White Americans have a Homicide rate very close to the White Europeans? Or that Black Americans have a homicide rate very close to Black Africans? How can that fucking be?!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday June 24 2018, @04:13PM (1 child)
Spray & pray vs. aimed fire. If I was in the crosshairs, I'd rather be in the first situation. Secondly, even under a gun banner's dream of Australian style restrictions, firearms will still exist and be used: https://ssaa.org.au/disciplines/single-action/ [ssaa.org.au]
And if you don't think an Old West style of single action revolver (meaning the hammer must be manually cocked for each shot, you can't just pull the trigger again after a cartridge is fired, you must cock the hammer manually) can't be shot fast or accurately, check out Bob Munden's balloon trick where he pops two balloons spaced eight feet apart with a single action revolver and does it so fast, the two shots sound like one shot. You can't really tell its two shots without the aid of slow motion video. See here at about 56 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5WjkI5FuP0 [youtube.com]
I'd much rather be shot at by some kid who thinks he's all badass with his black rifle, using spray & pray techniques from a weapon with poor ergonomics making accuracy difficult (e.g., an AR pistol like the SAINT), or accessories prone to jamming (like drum mags), than by someone who knows how to shoot and has a manually operated rifle or pistol.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:49PM
Fun fact; most revolvers can have a higher rate of fire than a semi-auto weapon.
The rate of fire of a revolver is limited only by how fast the trigger can be pulled. The rate of fire on a semi-auto is limited by how fast the bolt can eject the spent case and load new round. And no mater how fast you pull the trigger on a semi-auto it will never get faster. Best I've heard is 2 to 3 rounds per second.
But I've seen 16 rounds go through a revolver in under 3 seconds, including a reload. A basic semi-auto can't match that rate of fire.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:38PM (5 children)
Remember that mass murder in France a few years ago? The one where the guy used a truck to kill 80+ people? 50% more than the Vegas shooter.
Or Oklahoma City, that was what 120+ people? No guns used there either.
NY in 2001? Again, no guns used.
My point is if someone decides to kill a lot of people they will find a way to do it. Period.
Almost half the mass murders in the last 80 years have not involved guns, and most of the ones that did use guns actually had fewer deaths than those that didn't.
We have limited resources, we can play "whack a mole" and try to ban everything used to commit murders or we can focus resources on changing the people and cultures that cause these people to go into the deep end. Doing things like banning the tool used to murder doesn't work. As you point out Brittan has actually had serious suggestions to ban chef's knives and just about any knife with a sharp point because of the increasing number of murders using knives.
Change the culture and you not only decrease gun homicides but all homicides.
Which is more important to you; getting rid of guns or preventing murders? Doing the former may help the latter but doing the latter makes the former unnecessary.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)
yeah dude should have driven a truck off the hotel roof instead!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:32AM
Actually he had a pilot's license. Had he rented a Cesna and loaded it up with gas cans and some sort of incendiary device (just to make sure), he probably would have been more effective. Heck, if he'd just rented a Ryder and started driving through the crowd he probably would have done more damage. Thankfully, he decided to go the overly complicated / less effective route and thus managed to do less damage than he could have.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)
So, to extend that principle, even if there's been a plague of house burglaries in my area, there's no point in me upgrading my door and window locks because they won't prevent a fraudster hacking my bank account?
Don't wear a crash helmet on a motorbike because it won't stop you breaking your back?
Don't wear a hat because it won't keep your feet dry?
You're preventing a ridiculous straw man: "ban guns and we won't have any ore murders!" said absolutely no one at all, ever. If you've got some magical solution to "changing the culture" so that nobody commits murder then please share - odds are that the solution (a) won't work and (b) has a vastly bigger chilling effect on our civil liberties than forgoing the right to buy guns at the local Kwickie Mart.... but, hey, put some flesh on the bones and I'll give it an open mind (unless it involves Jesus).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:33AM
So if you don't want to ban guns to cut down on murder, it sounds like you are just trying to fuck with people who own guns for no reason whatsoever. That makes you sort of a dick.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 25 2018, @05:55PM
If you need to go back 2 decades to find an anecdote that can compete with events from 2 weeks ago then you're kind of proving the opposite point.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:45PM
It is untrue that the US is unique in the occurrence of mass shootings. One can only even begin to make the claim if one conveniently excludes mass shootings in Europe (such as the Paris attacks) as "terrorism" while defining similar acts in the US (i.e., the San Bernardino and Orlando killings) as generic "mass shootings." Similarly, it's also disingenuous to ignore other forms of mass homicide that occur when the murderers use means other than guns.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @09:54AM
But bradley13 is an idiot! Oh, but this is an endorsement by a fellow idiot?? Idiots agree!! Now if only we had Thirty Helens, so we could be closer to the truth on such matters.