Semiautomatic firearm ban passes Colorado's House, heads to Senate
Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms, a major step for the legislation after roughly the same bill was swiftly killed by Democrats last year.
The bill, which passed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its way to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.
But even in a state plagued by some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, such legislation faces headwinds.
Colorado’s political history is purple, shifting blue only recently. The bill’s chances of success in the state Senate are lower than they were in the House, where Democrats have a 46-19 majority and a bigger far-left flank. Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has indicated his wariness over such a ban.
I'll give up my guns when the cops do it first.
I hope you can fight!
You gonna win a shootout with cops?
You ever seen cops shoot?
I've seen a bunch of 'em get DQ'd from matches for being unsafe, or drop out when it was clear their scores were trash.
they've got a pretty good kda ratio
They use hacks like ESP and wallhacks.
In all seriousness, though, it's only because they always outnumber and have more resources than the person/people that they are in a shootout with. Not because they are better with firearms than an average gun owner who also trains with their firearm.
Yeah, and that's what you're up against thinking your guns are keeping the government in check.
...And yet, when cops see protestors that are as heavily armed as they are, historically they suddenly get very, very respectful. When the Proud Man-Children discover that the BLM protestors are armed and disciplined, they suddenly lose all their courage. Cops suddenly get really, really nervous when they realize that if they start shit, they aren't going to have a numerical advantage. When you've got one suspect and 20 cops though?
Cops aren't there to protect or serve the people; they're there to protect and serve the status quo.
But damn, people sure do hop on cops' dicks whenever someone says they might want to be able to protect themselves rather than hoping that cops will do it.
Gun grabbers will say they don't trust police and then say they're the only ones who should be armed in the same paragraph. It's wild.
I think most examples of armed protests in the US are on the side of police. But US police are also an example of America's problem with too many guns, they kill way too many people and should also have fewer guns.
Many, yes. But people on the left are slowly starting to learn the lessons that the Black Panthers and Malcolm X were trying to teach us. (...The lessons that ultimately got Malcolm X killed, IMO.) Groups like the John Brown Gun Clubs are working with and helping to train activists in order to for them to protect themselves from Proud Man-Children, and "Patriot" groups, since cops won't.
Power is never given willingly; power must be taken. The police have power, and asking nicely gets you nothing.
Not really. At the point where there's consensus that we are, in fact, in a civil war, then:
A) you're not some nutjob holed up in his house using his neighbor as a hostage B) there are others, and organization is doable
Yes, the government has organization and experience. Hopefully, it'll just never be an issue. Likely, there would be internal divisions, as well. But being ready for it to be an issue can both help prevent it becoming one, and give one the capacity to have an impact if it does become an issue.
If things get to an actual civil war where tyrannical government is willing to use its resources, i think you are severely underestimating the resources. The satellite and drone intel, the ability to destroy routes civilian vehicles can take, the aerial strikes. Civilians arent gonna get together no matter the heads they can put together and build competing anti air capabilities. Its not like a battle of damage numbers in a game, its ability to even play the games that they can. Like a well armored knight fighting against squirrels, the numbers dont matter, the little claws cant get through steel.
Thats all you can hope for, thats the only way civilians in any developed country survives:having a government that doesnt want to kill them. Armed population or not, it really has no effect.
Air strikes on your own populace? That's a way to build friends.
The whole premise theyre defending is we should have guns to defend against the US government. If the US government actually wanted to kill them, thats what they would be facing.
Putting aside the moral legitimacy of a government or a 'rebel' or 'resistance' group:
How does a government determine the difference between an intelligent citizenry that is defending itself in covert guerrilla warfare vs the citizenry that is not doing so?
You're acting like the government could just blow through with tanks and airstrikes, and be done with it all. That's not how a civil war with a mixed population works. As a more extreme example to make it clear, the government could also use nukes on the populace, but would obviously not typically do so, since doing so would involve killing the citizenry it considers legitimate along with those it considers illegitimate, and would cause too much collateral damage.
It's not like any modern rebellion would involve forming lines, having regular meeting spaces, or anything like that. Either the government is reasonable enough that change from within is possible, or it will be fought, in both passive and direct ways, by the populace.
Basically, your reasoning amounts to "being armed wouldn't work, so let's permit a Holocaust, because in the mean time, people are killing each other sometimes", even though this is the safest period in history.
Your current opinion that it's pointless or not possible basically relegates you to the role of being a fascism enabler that's tender to kids. I'd rather fight if needed, but you do you.
By identifying the participating combatants, likely before they ever manage to engage in that guerilla warfare to begin with. US intel has thwarted a lot of terrorist attacks before they could happen.
I dont think you understand what youre up against. You dont even have to have a physical meeting space at all, someones gonna be communicating online, or via cellphone. And then the government commandeers those records and finds out everything. You dont get to be covert against US intel.
The holocaust was only stopped by similarly advanced military resources
It totally worked in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The militant forces were completely pacified.
The goal isn't to beat the cops. It's to defend against neonazis.
Do you think the cops are gonna disarm neonazis? Or will they just use gun bans as an excuse to murder more black people?
You think black people with firearms are less likely to be shot by police?
How's that going? Because from the outside, it looks like this.
Do you not think cops are more likely to kill black people if there's a gun ban regardless whether they are armed?
Yes, I'm well aware of how it looks. They are trying to use public massacres to ignite a civil war. Of course it's horrible.
And yet we do almost nothing to prosecute their talking heads who incite those same shootings and the billionaires who fund their rallies. Because hate speech is still somehow free speech. We need to clean up the loopholes in the first amendment before addressing the second.
Trump is campaigning to become the next fuhrer, not president, yet you dingalings are bound and determined to make sure that we're disarmed in advance. How stupid is that?
That's some wicked grammar there, but... no? Why would the cops kill less black people if specific firearms are banned?
What?
Also, I feel Americans need to see this, and maybe consider that all these children dying isn't necessary for their hobby or 'self defense' claims:
USA has eight times the rate (as in percentage, not total_ of firearms deaths as Canada, which has more strict firearms rules. Canada has one-hundred times the rate of firearms deaths of the UK, which has more strict firearms rules.
That means the USA has 800 times the rare of firearms deaths as the UK. So when this mysterious 'civil war' happens, how many children will have died so that you can have that semi-auto AR-15 to fight off the drones of the American military, or the armoured vehicles of your cops?
Instead of pretending One Man With A Gun is going to do something, maybe try voting locally. Maybe try de-arming your cops?
I used to agree with this train of thought, why be armed when the government has tanks?
But the realities of the past several years have shown us that an armed rebellion can be significantly more powerful. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan, look at Myanmar today where the rebel groups are literally 3D printing carbines. A guerilla group with small arms can put serious pressure on a modern military. Will lots of them die? Probably. Will they "win"? Probably not, but they could easily wear down the enemy with attrition. When you need to move a couple dozen men with rifles it's an entirely different game than coordinating 12 tanks and 500 men, you can employ completely different tactics. Especially on your home turf that you know inside and out.
Is an armed rebellion happening anytime soon? I sure hope not. But the threat that an armed populace can at the least put some serious hurt on a military/government is a deterrent to tyranny. Just the possibility of it is a huge deterrent, compared to authoritarian countries where citizens aren't armed and get run over by tanks.
I'm not saying gun violence isn't a huge problem, but saying armed citizenry is zero deterrent is just factually untrue.
Couple things, but mostly: 1. How free are people in Iraq and Afghanistan, exactly? 2. Rebel groups are illegally printing carbines. The legality of it is meaningless. They aren't taking on the US military on it's own soil.
If you guys are saying that making death-by-gun the most common form of death for children in the USA, even above cars is worth it for some maybe-one-day-we'll-be-a-militia-group seems like the most sad and specious logic I've ever heard. I'm a parent and theoretically fighting some imaginary war (which we've been hearing about for decade after decade...) takes a definite backseat to my kids making it through school un-shot-at.
And virtually every armed rebellion that worked happened in a nation where firearms were heavily restricted, so the laws are meaningless. Hell you could only own a smoothbore shotgun at most in the soviet union, and last I checked a whole bunch of those countries had armed rebellions.
I'm not arguing against gun bans because I love guns. I'm arguing against them because humanity has a serious problem with fascism. I'm pointing out that fascists are heavily armed. The cops are almost entirely fascist sympathizers. They selectively enforce gun bans across racial and ideological lines, just like the Nazis did in Germany. They don't take guns away from Nazis. Instead, they use those laws to gun down minorities.
Oh hey, who's that? Why, is that a psychopathic fascist running for president? I wonder what would happen if he won again, and minorities and leftists were selectively disarmed and his neo-nazi followers weren't? But how could that ever happen? Cops are there to protect us from bad guys, right?
Yeah. Violence is generally not the answer. But when it is, it's the only answer.
Compare your image above with something extremely similar happening systematically, over and over and over as a populace is rounded up and shipped off to camps.
It sucks. Both situations suck. But disarming yourself isn't the solution.
Be armed. Be reasonable, and prefer to de-escalate. But also be willing to fight.
Yes. Cops have always used gun bans as an excuse to kill more black people, regardless whether or not they are armed.
Yes. They are trying to use school shootings to ignite a civil war. It's in their manifestos they leave behind. They say so on their forums. The same talking heads who formented the insurrection are same ones who encourage incels to commit public massacres, then deny all culpability immediately after. They even claim the shootings never happened.
You think this is a push, from the NRA amongst others, to get people to... ban specific firearms? How exactly does banning semi-auto firearms prevent your Totally-Going-To-Work-Later uprising?
[Because congratulations, your efforts to keep your firearms only cost the lives of 4,357 children (ages 1-19 years old) in the U.S. in 2020.
By comparison, motor-vehicle deaths accounted for 4,112 deaths in that age range.](https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/03/29/guns-leading-deaths-children-us/)
When did I ever say that this is a push from the NRA to get the USA to ban specific firearms?
I said that public massacres are being used by neo-Nazis to attempt to ignite a civil war, where they hope to rule over the ashes. I definitely did not suggest that gun bans would prevent these kinds of uprisings. Quite the opposite.
It's not just firearms here, although firearms do admittedly give some fucked up people a voice.
It's the cultural tendency to fuck people up that is the larger issue.
So, your argument is "just submit and it'll be fine"?
Where did I say that?
And none of these We Need Our Guns For Defense! comments are address that the main cause of death of your children is firearms. How many children have to die to prevent this theoretical tyrannical takeover? Where were all you guys with your guns when a coup was attempted?
Standing clear of it, waiting for the government to do its job. Which they did, admirably.
So we're agreed, firearms aren't necessary.
Dude, if you're going to try and put words in my mouth, give it half a thought first. That's twice you've demonstrated poor reading comprehension.
Armed citizens are the last necessary defense of the nation. We still had a semi-functioning government, and we had to give it the chance to prove itself still viable. Had it failed, things would have gone very differently.
If theyre necessary how do countries without them manage?
Pretty poorly when their governments are taken over by fascists.
You need some more understanding of other countries, both how other first world countries operate, and how fascist countries do. Lets take the country with the second most guns per capita, Yemen. The birthplace of the Houthis, who engaged in armed insurrection of the government, and became fascist oppressors. That's generally how fascist countries are born, from armed uprisings. It doesnt generally go well for the country, grabbing power with guns tends to mean holding onto that power with guns.
first world countries like in Europe tend to have fewer guns, and more representative governments. Rather than threats of violence, they use threats of labor.
Guns dont defend shit. We have all the guns, its not going well. A gun ban at least slows down supply. And starts a long path to becoming like developed countries that arent murderous gun nuts like we are.
It’s going better here than it is in Myanmar or Gaza.
How’s that weapons ban going for Gaza?
Ukraine lets their citizens have weapons now too.
Tell you what. How about you pass a law to disarm people based on their hateful ideologies FIRST. Make Nazism illegal, then disarm, prosecute, and imprison the neonazis, by force of law. They are currently trying to ignite a new Civil War against America, yet you want to disarm the rest of us in the face of that.
Fix that, then we can discuss disarming law abiding citizens.
You gonna address the question I asked? Cops only use gun bans as an excuse to kill more black people.
Imagine trusting a neoliberal government to take the guns away from those leftists deem dangerous. You really don't see how that might go awry?
I don't see you offering a better suggestion.
I didn't think I needed to state the obvious: armed leftists are much more difficult to oppress.
I could go for a law that states something like:
To the degree that you attempt to control or suppress another person or group, you may be controlled or suppressed accordingly.
This is magical law, but we may as well make it mundane law, too.
You actually downvoted the idea of making Nazism illegal. How does that make you feel?
Like I’m in a different category than the Nazis, who rounded up and murdered Communists and Trade Unionists during the Holocaust.
Read a book dude. History is well-documented.
And yet you downvoted the suggestion of making Nazism illegal. You've read books, and despite that, still thought that banning Nazism was a bad idea.
I think youd have a hard time defining and identifying nazis in legal terms.
And i dont trust any gun owner to be a law abiding citizen, we're all animals that can get very emotional. And we have the results of that in our horrendous homicide rate.
Really? Because Germany managed it. Nazism is illegal there. They prosecute anyone who professes Nazi ideas. I don't care how hard it would be. You think confiscating all the guns is easier?
I don't care who you trust. I care that this nation is too foolish and cowardly to root out the cancer it has harbored since long before it was founded. Ban sympathy for the Confederacy. Ban Nazi ideology. Prosecute those who profess it. Ruin those who fund them. Cleanse the police departments of all the Nazi cops. We will never be free of them until the day we make their ideologies illegal.
Until then, piss off trying to disarm the millions of people who only wish to defend their homes from exactly those people pushing for civil war.
Gee whiz, you sure don't want to address the fact that cops only use gun bans as an excuse to murder black people.
just a heads up, west germany famously integrated nazis into the government and still has them to this day.
I would love to do how Germany does, no one gets a gun.
Most of their nazi ban entails antisemitism, which i dont think covers a lot of people you wouldnt want to have guns. It also entails self labeling nazis, people wearing nazi uniforms, using swastikas, etc. Again, i dont think thats gonna cover most of the people youd want it to. Its better than nothing and id support it here, but its not gonna be very effective at keeping guns away from people with various nazi beliefs.
What gun bans?
Every gun ban we've ever passed.
If you want to ban guns, disarm the Nazis first. That's all I ask.
We dont have any gun bans. The countries that do, like Germany, have a lot less cops killing people, including black people. Im saying a sweeping gun ban takes guns away from more people with nazi ideologies than a ban on just self identifying nazis.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
There a better way: if you don't have a valid reason* to have a gun, you can't have it. If you have a valid reason* but not to carry it, you can't carry it and you can only use it in a target range.
All I see is you not thinking about anything I've said.
Many countries do almost what I said and are safer that the US by far.
You rooting for the fascists for a reason?
When did that happen?
You called for disarmament of the people, even Marx thought that was a stupid idea
Yeah, most of the least fascist countries in the world dont have very armed people
He's just gonna be a punk to the gangbangers like in El Salvador before the crackdown.
Im just always flabbergasted when ever someone thinks theyre keeping the government in line with their civilian arms. Like they suddenly dont know what kinda firepower the US government has.
In all fairness, the idea behind an armed resistance to a tyrannical government is not to win, but to make the effort of stamping out resistance so costly that it bleeds them dry. Death by a thousand paper cuts style.
Not that any of the Rambo wanna-be's are thinking of that, of course.
How’d Afghanistan go?
Savage.
It’s always obvious when someone has watched every Rambo movie, but has never been within 10 miles of a military base. Good luck to them…
Zero states ban semiautomatic firearms.
It's an AWB, yes, some states do ban some semi-auto guns.
Yeah but AW is a meaningless label that means whatever the specific AWB says it means, AFAIK none of the states flat out prohibit the sale of all semiautomatic firearms, correct?
The co bill does ban all semi rifles.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I mean CO would be the first to do that, correct? Honest question.
Supreme Court shoots it down in 3-2-1...
The Heller ruling in 2008 already decided this.
Washington D.C. had effectively banned pistols, the court ruled then:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
"As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights,[Footnote 27] banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster."
So, no, you can't ban an entire class of weapon.
You absolutely can. Full-auto weapons are banned for general purchase in pretty much every state. Things like explosive-based guns are also banned. Flame-throwers, etc.
Heller is a clear violation of state's rights to pass more-restrictive laws than the federal level. We've had tons of gun laws that restrict purchases and types of firearms for decades anyways on the state and local level.
General purchase, yes, but you can still buy one if you fill out the appropriate ATF paperwork and pay the HUGE transfer fees.
https://www.therange702.com/blog/can-you-legally-own-a-machine-gun/
"To legally own a machine gun, you first have to apply for approval from the federal government. After purchasing the gun, you must fill out an ATF Form 4 application and wait for approval before taking possession of the firearm. The FBI conducts a thorough background check using fingerprints and a photograph required with your application, which could take 9 to 12 months to process. The gun will need to stay in possession of the previous owner until the process is complete.
In addition, you will need to pay a $200 “NFA tax stamp” for each weapon transaction. If approved, you will receive your paperwork in the mail, including a permit with the listed lawful possessor of the firearm. Only then can you take the machine gun home and possess it legally."
This Colorado ruling doesn't allow for that.
To be fair, even if it did, I could still see it being unconstitutional to the supreme court.
We don't want to admit it, but we kind of weasled our way to ban automatic weapons which is why there is only a "practical" ban instead of an absolute one.
i.e. You can legally own full-auto weapons if you spend the money to do so.
I think it would be very interesting if some right-wingers tried to do something like this but frame it as though you can "only buy handguns/semiautomatics made before a certain date, gotta pay all these fees, etc."
That could force the supreme court to look at whether the original "ban" on automatics is actually constitutional.
Oh, yeah, and with THIS court? That is absolutely a road Democrats should not even CONSIDER wanting to go down.
The ban was enacted as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Control_Act_of_1968
Can you imagine if they just tossed that out?
According to Interstate Commerce and the Supremacy Clauses, the States actually do not have that right, they just haven't been sued on those grounds directly.
The whole bit about being primarily used for a lawful purpose seems important.
Yes, that lawful purpose. Self defense. It's not just "any" or "a" lawful purpose. Self defense goes to the very heart of the Heller ruling.
Why? Does any other right depend on that?
Maybe it isn't a right and maybe it was a temporary provision for a frontier society to quickly setup a temporary army to deal with slave revolts.
I don't know about that. In general, rocket-propelled weapons and land mines are not legal for ownership. You even need special dispensation to own a fully automatic machine gun.
Those are explosives, completely different deal from firearms. Supreme court ruled on that too, Caetano, 2016:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/411/
“The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as 'bearable arms,' even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."
Caetano is really my favorite of these rulings because it started out having nothing to do with guns.
Woman, scared of her ex, bought a stun gun for protection. Massachusetts arrested her, stated "stun guns didn't exist back then, no 2nd Amendment right to a stun gun."
Court "um, actually'd" them pretty hard.
So, you can't ban a class of gun (Heller, 2008) and you can't ban a bearable arm just because it didn't exist 200 years ago (Caetano, 2016.)
And the court has only gotten MORE conservative since then, not less. :( This new ban is going to go nowhere fast, shame Colorado taxpayers are going to have to pay for a losing case.
Thank you for at least bringing the realistic approach to this conversation. It is by no means ideal, and sets us back from actually making streets safer. Anyone can purchase just about anything weapon-related in a country where political chaos and cultural divisions are a dime a dozen is really a cocktail for disaster. Of course people are going to lean on the argument that if the bad guys have the weapons than good guys shouldn’t be banned from having their own, because the number of untraceable weapons is already past critical mass.
State by state gun laws are SUPER weird too. As an Oregonian, I can own multiple weapons that are illegal in California. You can get in trouble just by crossing the border.
For example, this little guy (Bond Arms Ranger II) is legal in Oregon, illegal in California:
You might ask "What's the big deal? It's a pistol, not a rifle, it only holds 2 shots, it's a breech loader, so not even semi-automatic... what's the problem?"
Problem is that it's a smooth bore .45 that can also fire .410 shotgun shells. California classifies it as a short barrelled shotgun.
I've never fired one of those, but it sounds like the kick on it would be crazy. Very small weapon with very large ammo just seems like a recipe for wild kickback. I could be wrong, though. Maybe the grip design helps?
Shotgun shells come in many varieties and loads of poweder, you absolutely can make that a wrist snapper but if you pick the right shells, especially for .410 you won't be too bad. .45 would probably have a lot of muzzle raise but I wouldn't imagine that to kick too forcefully, definitely handle-able but you're probably not ripping fast on target follow up shots with that.
Grip and the weight. It's 1.5 pounds.
Do stun guns use an explosive propellant? I never thought of it before, but it would make sense that they do. I only ask because I know that weapons that don't aren't classified as guns.
Stuff like coil guns, rail guns, and compressed air rifles aren't controlled by gun laws and are unaffected by bans like this because they're not "firearms." For example, some states have a ban on putting a silencer on a gun, but nothing about owning a silencer. So it's perfectly legal to put one on a compressed air rifle, and with how quiet they are, that makes them whisper quiet. Plus, 80% lowers aren't considered guns either, so unless this law specifically calls them out, it's still legal for anybody to go online and have one shipped right to their door. You usually don't even need an F-ID card for that. Hell, even gunpowder doesn't require a license below a certain amount.
Laws like this are, at best, a post hoc solution to a national and cultural problem, and more often than not just security theater.
You said 'weapons,' not 'guns.' If you meant guns, that would be a different issue. However, even there, fully-automatic machine guns are not generally available with a simple background check like other guns. You have to apply for a federal license to get them. So they are treated quite differently.
No, but as noted above, there IS a path to legal machine gun ownership, it's just slightly more involved and expensive.
So restricted to the wealthy?
Pretty much, it's a tax on the poors. They'll have to be satisfied with bump stocks and hellfire triggers.
I would personally argue that expanding that to other guns would be a huge step up from what we have now. It might even prevent some mass shootings.
It could, but as with the machine gun ban, it needs to be done at a Federal level.
Fuck the pooooooooooor
Do you think maybe the fact that you are suggesting that poor people need guns to protect themselves is indicative of a much bigger problem?
You can own both of those things, you just need the explosives permit from the BAFTE, and they are very strict about the permitting and furthermore the storage, etc of those items. If you don't mind the FBI examining your butthole and the buttholes of everyone you know, along with massive fees and regular inspections of the items and their storage facility, then have at it.
This ban will apply to police as well?
And the military?
Of course
You sure? Cali has cutouts for cops so the cops traffic guns there.
Just like police aren't allowed to kill innocent people.
The law only applies to the rest of us.
This just seems like a stupid time to be pressing legislation like this. I don't even disagree with it myself. I just think it's idiotic from a political perspective. The Dems can see the GoP struggling with the fall out of Roe v. Wade, and they still want to step into this fight now?
Step in and lose as it's swiftly struck down by one of the most conservative courts in history.
You don't have to be a conservative to recognize it's a violation of the 2nd amendment.
Looks well regulated to me!
Man people really love to drop off the first half of that sentence when quoting the second amendment.
Who's being denied access to arms? It doesn't say you get any firearm you want and there's plenty of precedent keeping certain firearms regulated.
Also, which militia are you a member of, specifically?
It says shall not be infringed which means what it says. There is no prescription for what is allowed but instead the opposite. The government cannot and should not prevent the population from arming itself. If people think that's disagreeable then they should amend the constitution not defy it.
The constitution was written by people who had just overthrown a government. This amendment wasn't written to protect the rights of hunters. It's specifically to enable the people to take control if the government gets out hand.
Do you think the US would allow a militia to exist when it's entire purpose is to be a check on government power?
The amendment specifically states that it's there to aid the common defense.
You really aught to read the entire amendment.
Also the idea that the founding fathers wrote down the bill of rights, still battle weary with fear of future governments is completely false.
The bill of rights was written ten years after the war had been settled, with a significant faction of the founders worried about another revolution.
They had just come out of the Articles of Confederation, a government that had no authority to tax or raise an army. The second amendment was written to address specifically that issue. That we need a militia to defend the country since we really can't do it any other way, and don't want to. So might as well let farmers have guns, much to the dismay of the federalists.
Imagine still wanting gun control people after January 6th 2021 and the police violence of the George floydd protests.
We're on our own, stop hiding your heads in the sand.
SocialistRA.org
The only 2021 protests where people weren't getting their eyes shot out by pepperballs and beanbags were the ones where people were armed. Message fucking received.
It's not a "Semi-Automatic Firearm Ban" it's an Assault Weapons Tax. Seriously the only penalties in this bill are modest ($750) fines.
No matter which side of this debate you are on this legislation is a joke.
Are we reading the same link?
Here's the actual text of the bill. Do you find that dollar amount listed anywhere but in the summary?
I read the link you posted, and is the summary of the actual text of the bill inaccurate? Not even trying to argue.
I'm more concerned that something that important is only in the summary. Either I don't understand how bills are written, granted in a state I don't live in, or the text was changed but the summary not?
Either it is, or the bill was amended and one of the two is out of date.
It might refer out to an already existing class of punishment. I will admit I don't have the time to read it right now to see if that's the case. I am severely disappointed though if it's not actually all semi-auto weapons. Trying to divide military from civilian semi-auto rifles is ridiculous.
Like the "End Hedge fund ownership of residential properties" bill that is just a tax on hedge funds that own over 100 residences, a tax that they will happily pass on to their tenants (after adding another 25% on top to cover the emotional cost of being taxed by the evil government!).
Laws don't have teeth in this country because they are always designed to only punish the poor.
If only Americans could be like the Swiss, y’all could have your guns and none of the problems.
Our ability to self govern is non-existent. We can't even put shopping carts in the return carousel. We definitely won't take gun ownership seriously.
You have a carousel to return your shopping carts and you still don’t put them back 😱
Here we just go to the place they’re stored and put the chain back in, and we get our coin / token back.
Yeah, and we have people that mess with them.
Isn't that like... most guns people actually use other than some shotguns and some handguns? And even then, why you would use a pump action over a semi-automatic shotgun is beyond me...
Anything but revolvers, bolt-action, and pump-action. ..well, there's muzzle loaders, too.. Kinda extreme.
I'd consider a revolver to be semi automatic as well. It shoots each time you squeeze the trigger.
Strictly speaking "one pull of the trigger, one round out of the barrel," maybe. There is a distinction though.
A double-action revolver gets the energy for moving the next round into firing position and cocking the action from the shooter's trigger finger. This results in a rather long and heavy trigger pull, or you have to cock the hammer manually with your thumb, if the gun allows it. So with a double-action revolver, there's an upper limit to rapid, accurate fire. You often get one or the other, seldom both.
Semi-automatics use energy from the cartridge to eject the spent cartridge, strip a new one from the magazine and cock the action for another shot. Because the shooter doesn't have to do all that work with their fingers, it is much easier to shoot rapidly while maintaining accuracy.
Revolvers seldom hold more than 6 shots before requiring a fairly lengthy and fiddly reload, semi-automatics hold 7 shots minimum with some guns holding as many as 17 rounds before requiring a much simpler magazine swap.
Because of the gap between the cylinder and the barrel allowing hot gases to escape, revolving rifles are rare, which is why they tend to go from a manual loading system like a bolt action to semi-automatic.
Thing is, it doesn't really matter. Firearm engineering isn't the cause of shootings. President Kennedy was killed with a bolt action rifle. Columbine was a failed bombing, the murders were done with a shotgun and an open-bolt pistol which AFAIK has successfully been banned. Virginia Tech was done with handguns. A large number of them have been done with AR-15 patterned semi-automatic rifles.
As much fun as it would be to ban all guns, if for no other reason than to hurt the Republicans' feelings as punishment for being such thoroughly shitty "people", it's just not a thing that's going to happen. Pandora has opened that box. There's other things that need to happen, like, reality needs to contain the possibility for ordinary people to survive on wages they'll actually be paid. But, recall that the Republicans are thoroughly shitty, they don't want that to happen either.
A non-double action revolver would fit the bill, but I don't think those even exist
The Colt Single Action Army is likely one of the most iconic pistols in the US, "The gun that won the west." You've seen them in many movies without realizing it.
The term you're looking for his "single action" or sometimes "cowboy action" though that will also include lever action rifles and shotguns, and break actions as well.
Single Action is defined by the trigger having the single function of releasing the hammer (you thumb and cocks the hammer which rotates the cylinder separately). Double action trigger pull will rotate the cylinder and cycle the hammer.
Look up cowboy action shooting and guns like the Ruger Vaquero. They do exist.
It's back to revolvers, boys! Yee haw!
This will never get past the Supreme Court because it is blatantly unconstitutional.
Nice job wasting money posturing for your base, colorado democrats.
You're just like the grifters in florida.
People would still have access to the OG weapons that the Constitution was talking about?
Cool I can have a 12 pound cannon and grape shot then?
Actually yes. I used to have one. Restored it for civil war reenactments. We would shoot pumpkins with it.
As long as it's not concealed on your person.
Yeah I definitely remember the words "smoothbore musket" in the 2A. People thinking this law is a good idea have huge "but I love my local PD, they're so helpful and I never get so much as a ticket, just flirt a little" energy.
I'll take that deal if we can replace cops with militias too.
Conservatives are demanding the widespread oppression and even slaughter of our nation's most vulnerable groups and the best we can come up with is "let's disarm ourselves". FFS
Why not outlaw far-right ideologies like nazism? The conservatives would oppose that too, but it's something all the normal people can agree on.
While not opposed to the last statement it would be a terrible idea in the real world with corrupt government
If the government ever decides to take up arms against us, we are already screwed even with the massive oversupply of civilian weapons of war.
Because of the 1st amendment. Kind of the foundation of the USA outside money.
I think you're missing the hyperbole in their statement. They're suggesting they're both misguided ideas.
We could also argue, but the 2nd Amendment protects the 1st.
Sounds like a loophole in the 1st amendment that needs fixing.
My .22 varmint rifle is semiauto. They take those too?
Sounds like it’s only a ban on sale and transfer. Keep that gun.
I is. It was a birfday giff from ma mamaw
They can't even report things correctly. If I'm not mistaken this bill bans semiautomatic rifles only. Otherwise it would ban most modern handguns. It would be almost instantly overturned.
I don't expect this to go over well with the federal supreme court...
We've already established a line that some weapons are too dangerous for the general public. I wonder why states can't draw the line of what weapons it considers are too dangerous.
We have already established that some speech is too dangerous to be allowed in public. I wonder why states can't decide what we are allowed to say or not.
Oh wait, I don't. If you have an issue understanding opposition to a gun control law, try replacing gun with speech and see if you see the problem. Both are equally constitutionally protected rights.
But we have already established that some speech is too dangerous to be allowed? Yes, there is opposition to that notion, but it doesn't change the reality that some people can and will kick up enough bullshit to start a Holocaust.
Allow me to help.
A common take is that semiautomatic firearms are a privilege to have because they're not necessary for self defense. As a privilege, States have the right to regulate said semi automatic firearms. Including outlaw them.
The 1st ammendment reproduction here is
Documents of more than 800 words are a privilege to write and dessiminate because on average it takes less than 800 words to convey an argument or point. Therefore, as a privilege, a state has the right to regulate said level of speech since it exceeds the level of protected and becomes a privilege. A state therefore can outlaw forms of speech exceeding 800 words.
If that example doesng jive with you, another would be:
It takes on average 1m30s for a TV News agency to tell a story. TV News and their ability to tell stories is protected 1st ammendment speech, but, since it only takes 1m30s to tell a news story, anything on the news taking longer than 1m30s is a privilege and therefore can be regulated by the state. Including outlawed by the state.
A lot of people feel that regulation of the second ammendment is very scary because of the ramifications regulation like the ones proposed could have on other ammendments. Such as the like counterparts to regulating first ammendment speech I generated above.
As a real world example; I imagine if she could, Mayor Tiffany A. Henyard would see regulation of speech such as ive described above perfectly legal and in the best interest of her community in order to stop missinformation of her mayorship and the political agendas of The News in her area.
In a similar light, gun owners are seeing the regulation attempts of semi automatic firearms and are feeling very similar to how all of us would feel in the Henyard example above. For clarity, gun owners are feeling as though they are being told that the Government has the extreme authority to tell an individual citizen that has grown up with firearms, effectively and safely uses them, that said citizen doesn't truly understand what it is they have and that an individual collective of politicians ultimately knows whats best and safest for them... Many dont feel OK with that idea of giving up personal freedoms to some weirdo on TV that says "it has to be done for your own best interest". To those gun owners, it feels the same as Mayor Tiffany A. Henyard appearing on TV and saying "im regulating the local news agencies in the area based on average time to convey news that is not filled with political missinformation for the collective safety, progress, and betterment of our community and my ability to lead".
The Supreme Court just this week made it much harder to collectively protest in three states, which is also in the First Amendment. So I think you're argument is moot.
You're right, it's bad to restrict speech rights, but the law should be applied equally to gun rights.
No they didn't. They didn't give blanket immunity to organizers. They still have considerable protection established in other cases of what is required to meet non-protected speech.
Free speech is being weakened, so you'd rather lose even more of your rights?
People's free access to guns puts my life more at risk. I don't own a gun because it's a stupid hobby and it's dangerous.
So, in this specific instance, yes. It's a good idea to revoke the second amendment completely.
Ok, so let's imagine you're able to revoke the 2nd amendment. What then? Your life was never at risk from law abiding gun owners to begin with. Now only the criminals have guns, and you and I have lost our right to bear arms. How does that help?
Personally, I don't have an issue with gun ownership being regulated (within reason). I live in a state with fairly strict gun laws, and while some of them don't make sense, I do see the need for it overall. I'd rather fix the things that aren't working than throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I first read they ban semiautomatic fire alarms, and was wondering why and what even a semiautomatic fire alarm is
An electronic voice:
Stupid human - your building seems to be burning. May I sound the alarm now?
How about now?
Perhaps before you die of smoke inhalation, then?
Hello?
I honestly don't think action matters as much as magazine size. You could build a high capacity lever action and rack up one hell of a body count.
Didnt the bell tower shooter in Texas use a bolt action rifle?
What would they say if people started mass knifing?
I imagine there'd be discussion regarding how we might restrict a person's ability to publicly and freely stab multiple people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Which is the correct course of action. People should not be allowed to murder people, and things should be done to make it harder to do.
how about just prosecute the crime that is already happening? I mean murder is a crime. The most used murder weapon is a screwdriver. Should we also ban those?
Prosecution isn't a preventative measure. It's reactionary. A society should have some degree of foresight.
There's nothing indicating we can't design a less lethal screwdriver. I have the sneaking suspicion that screwdriver murders aren't happening in public spaces as frequently as private ones, so there's room for discussion on how we ought to reduce someone's capacity for murder with one. I'm concerned that you think this is a ridiculous notion, as though a society has no choice but to allow murderers free reign over others. It's a limited frame of mind, and nothing would ever be done about anything. I understand that that's essentially what the idea is with gun control, but I disagree with it for many reasons.
In 2014 there was this guy in Taiwan that started mass knifing people in the MRT Train station. The MOST he was able to stab was 22 people and killed 4.
He actually had to sit down to rest before continuing to stab people because he was tired. In a documentary, he trained for months to have the stamina to maximize kills. It would be different if he had a handgun let alone a AR-15.
Taiwan is a total ban for all guns.
Seems like your stupid comment backfired.
And a Uyghur in mainland China got 26, including killing four officers armed with automatic rifles (and this incident immediately preceded China throwing that part of their population into camps and ramping up their oppression against minority groups).
Exactly, 25 is actually impressive. Imagine having to chase down 25 people. I would have given up after a couple. With an AR-15, they wouldn't even need to look at the faces of the people they are killing, like that Vegas shooter in the hotel. Fucking cowards.
That seems similar to the numbers that most "mass shooters" end up getting.
I dunno. Check back in with us when that starts happening anywhere other than inside of your head.
At least something is happening inside my head.
Cool.
Now pass some laws banning hate speech, and regulate what religions can and can't talk about; the pope has no business saying that transgender ideology is sinful! While they're at it, they should make sure that criminal defendants are required to confess if they have committed a crime, and it would probably be a lot easier to just forbid lawyers from working with people charged with crimes. Oh, and ban pot and booze, since those and TikTok are going to be the downfall of the youth.
I feel like a better option here would be limits on magazine capacities. Limiting internal and box magazine capacities to 5-10 rounds on semiautomatic firearms could have the same effect without it being an outright ban. Maybe have different capacities for handguns and rifles.
This is just more ammo (heh) for 2nd Amendment voters. Being a bit more clever about it could convince some of them to drop their resistance.
California did it and IIRC, that's going to the Supremes this year?
Yeah, CA's law has twice been overturned by federal judges (but is being allowed to stay in effect for now) and is on its way to the SC.
This still allows bolt action for hunting, revolvers and shotguns for defense. That should be plenty. If you're spraying a dozen+ rounds in your own home for defense you're more of a danger than an intruder at that point.
Common-sense gun regulation.
Lol. And yet healthcare is something Republicans fight against constantly. And "people who do not value life" is great from the forced-birth and no social safety nets crowd.
Exactly. If you're incredibly viscous and lucky you can get a lot of people, but rarely double digits with a hand-held blade. With a semi-automatic rifle you can get dozens with someone untrained. And we've seen it happen. Multiple times.
I mean, it allows this kind of semi-automatic shotgun, but not this kind of semi-automatic shotgun. Those firearms are functionally indistinguishable, but somehow that little grip thing makes one more deadly than the other. As a lefty hunter and outdoorsman, this kind of bill is absolutely ridiculous security theater that doesn't meaningfully change the risk and/or damage from mass shootings but makes other people feel better, somehow.
I fundamentally don’t understand the fixation on pistol grips and thumb holes and threaded barrels. At least they left that last one off for shotguns.
Not really what this post is about, but can we get rid of the "common sense gun laws" mantra already? It's implying that anyone who disagrees with it, for ANY reason, doesn't have common sense. It's not good for having a meaningful discussion on how we can work together to deal with this problem.
Personally, I don't think guns are the underlying issue here. While I am not against regulation, I think plenty of events show that without firearms tragedies will still occur. So it would only be a small part of preventing these sort of events.
Gun culture is a major issue, even beyond the guns themselves. "Come and take em" and "fuck around and find out" are symptoms of a mentality that guns are a solution to solving problems that's on par with discussion, leaving, or de-escalating. When ultimately, guns are the final answer that should only be used when all other options have been exhausted.
Socioeconomic pressures and inequality issues need to be addressed to deal with most gun crimes, since mass shootings are the minority cases in which gun deaths occur. Yes, when they happen they are atrocious and make headlines and everyone hears and talks about it, but when people are dieing literally every day from guns we can't only focus on the events that catch media attention.
Mental health, and by extension, all health needs to be made a priority. Suicides by guns is by and far the most common method.
Media needs to stop stoking fear and divisiveness. We see too often than someone reacts with extreme actions to perceived threats that aren't really there. They've been primed to be afraid ALL THE TIME. So when someone knocks at the wrong door or uses their driveway to turn around they violent "protect" themselves from a threat that never existed.
Stop the worshipping of property. It is NEVER worth the taking of life to protect property. This goes back to gun culture where people believe that using a gun to protect their own shit is somehow a valid solution. This also extends to the police. Fuck them for violently protecting property over people.
Fix the police problem. At the very least, teach them fucking patience. At every point they try to end a non-violent interaction as fast as possible that they are often the ones to escalate to violence. Unless someone's life is directly and immediately threatened, chill the fuck out.
Yes but it's literally the magnitude of it, which I covered.
I would argue that hunting, defense, and sport are not reasons we have the right to bear arms. Its to overthrow a tyrannical government.
It's actually to have well-armed militias at the state level. Individuals, unorganized will have no chance to overthrow any government. Hence the militia part.
The problem with that is that’s putting a lot of faith in the state both not being just a tool of the tyrannical government, or the state not being tyrannical themselves, which is why i support a more granular right to bear arms. But you are right that was the plain intention for the second amendment.
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" verbatim text, the state ≠ the people. I'm sure the British thought the same thing when a rebellious colony started to fight.
Read the rest of it, not just the parts you like. This isn't the Bible.
We've seen 2 attempts to overthrow the federal government. 1 in the 1860s and 1 in 2020. Neither time was the government acting tyrannically. Neither time did it work. Neither time did guns help. Maybe guns aren't the answer to that problem, either.
Then it’s not protected/covered by the second amendment. The tyrannical qualifier prevents it from covering baseless coups. But there was a reason it was put in due to the harsh lessons learned from the revolutionary war.
I may reconsider my position on the second amendment if you can convince me that the government or the local police will not become tyrannical, ever…
I might change my position on the 2nd Amendment if you can show me that access to so many guns prevents a government from ever becoming tyrannical. So far, that access has only made society itself tyrannical and given the police all the excuse they needed to be able to use tanks, APCs, and other military equipment against us.
I mean, usually a rebellion against a government success is tied to its access to weaponry. I don’t know a single rebellion against tyranny that was successful without weapons.
I am for more regulations because obviously we got a massive problem here. but with my primary point being what i said above, how do you decide who can’t have a weapon without the government ultimately deciding who can have a gun, which defeats the purpose of having the right in the first place.
I was thinking about leaning into the militias where you have to be sponsored by a group that could have their rights to guns withdrawn as a whole when they foster a bad actor, to make sponsorships harder and to have a pressure to maintain connections with people and when someone starts throwing red flags or ghosting, there is a group with a vested interest to start interventions. But then there is the tricky bit of taking the guns when it’s time to enforce anything, still has the government choosing who can be armed. So i still am stuck.
That being said i don’t have a weapon.
They specifically banned the rifle I like shooting: Daniel Defense M4A1.
Guns aren’t just for hunting or defense. I wasn’t on board until I went to the range. I’m now a fan of rifles.
I’m not a huge fan of California spec rifles. Unless you buy multiple mags, switching out is a pain.
Now what WOULD be neat, is if I could buy the rifle and then purchase a magazine of ammo at the range, returning the magazine and unspent ammo at the counter
I'm going to say that hobbies are less important than public safety.
I do agree with your notion about restricting ammo. I believe Switzerland does that. We'd also need to restrict ammo components because otherwise you'd just have people reloading (making bullets) at home.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. We basically agreed, except for I advocated for handing magazines and rounds back into the range and you didn’t think I did.
While I agree that safety is more important than hobbies and if they cannot coexist, I would choose safety; however I believe in this instance that they can
And that's why I appendix carry a S&W 500. One shot, anywhere in meat, is a show stopper.
For those wondering, the second sentence, while unnecessarily explicit, is accurate. This gun is a revolver and would not be impacted by this law.
At $2/rd for a kinda rare $2,000 gun, I'd rather throw literal money at assailants harassing me.
Try $3-5 a round, but yeah, throwing quarters might be as effective.
Do you honestly believe bolt-action is adequate for hunting?
If you need more than one shot in under a second you are a shit hunter and need to get back to the range.
People bow hunt and hunted that way for hundreds of years.
People normally don't bow hunt dangerous game, they bow hunt animals like deer and elk. Most hunters wouldn't use a bow to hunt boars.
People also used lead plumbing for hundreds of years. Doesn't mean we shouldn't use modern alternatives.
Most people don't hunt dangerous game. Why the fuck are you wanting to bear hunt? Get real and leave that to the wardens.
I was talking about animals like moose and boar, but people do hunt bears. Legally. It doesn't sound like you know anything about hunting.
Let rangers deal with large animals.
If you need multiple shots for a boar, you're fucking up. Go back to the range.
Really now, this is pathetic. Get back inside and let real hunters work. And stop trophy hunting FFS.
If the rangers want to sell licenses to hunt mountain lions and bears, who am I to tell them they're wrong? Stay in your lane.
If you read this, after this is struck down i want you to remember this bill the next time you read about another mass shooting. I know youre numb to them but realize they arent normal for developed countries.