Gun Rights Roundup

 

As you might expect, there have been an enormous amount of things said and written in the aftermath of the Las Vegas mass shooting. While the usual suspects have made emotional appeals for gun control and crowned a late night comedian the “conscience of America” (both right out of the gun-control playbook for these incidents), there has been a significant amount of clue dispensed about the efforts to preserve and expand our innate right to armed self-defense.

What’s been interesting to watch is how the NRA’s request to have the ATF take another look at the bump fire devices has let out all the air in the gun control bubble. The ginned-up outrage over Wayne LaPierre’s “good guy with a gun” remarks after Sandy Hook lasted for weeks but now, because of the NRA’s pre-emptive move and the lecherous actions of a big-time Hollywood producer and Democrat donor, the news cycle is moving away from gun control on to other things.

As they should. Because this is what happens when guns become part of your lifestyle: They no longer become “controversial,” they become part of your life.

Published in Guns
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 9 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. TeeJaw Inactive
    TeeJaw
    @TeeJaw

    My first reaction on bump stocks [until this week I had never heard of such a thing] was to fight like hell over it because the Left gets a crumb they go for your jugular.  But I think I’ve changed my mind because of what others have said, and especially this:

    What’s been interesting to watch is how the NRA’s request to have the ATF take another look at the bump fire devices has let out all the air in the gun control bubble. The ginned-up outrage over Wayne LaPierre’s “good guy with a gun” remarks after Sandy Hook lasted for weeks but now, because of the NRA’s pre-emptive move and the lecherous actions of a big-time Hollywood producer and Democrat donor, the news cycle is moving away from gun control on to other things.

    I was already beginning to reconsider, and now I think the NRA has it right and is being very shrewd. Letting the air out of the liberal windbag is always satisfying.

    • #1
  2. TeeJaw Inactive
    TeeJaw
    @TeeJaw

    It’s still wrong to say a bump stock converts a semi-auto into a full auto. Even with a bump stock it’s still one pull of the trigger for one shot. Otherwise, the ATF would never have ruled that a bump stock is legal. It’s also still true that bump stocks are worthless to a real firearm enthusiast. You have no accuracy and they can ruin the barrel of your beloved AR-15 by overheating it.

     

    • #2
  3. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    What is a thoughtful, useful, potentially successful response to Vegas, Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc?  The most logical argument that the left can make, based on their basic premise that guns kill people, is to make guns illegal and disarm America.  Not gonna happen.

    The counter argument by the right, based on the premise that sick and bad people kill other people and guns are merely the method of choice, might be to alter human nature.  Ditto.

    As a child, college student and medical student, I agreed with the liberal position.  Yes, bad people will use other weapons. But one can run away from a knife or a tire iron.  One can’t flee a flying bullet.  Since adulthood, I have espoused the counter argument.  I like to be able to protect my home.  If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns, etc.

    But after Vegas, I am having qualms.  Deep, sleep-disturbing qualms.  No proposed gun control mechanism would have stopped this guy. Nor most of the other mass murderers who used guns.

    Correctly asserting that we are entitled to our guns by the Second Amendment doesn’t prevent sick and bad people from killing with guns.  Is our gun ownership, including mine, important enough to exalt the Second Amendment over the lives that will be lost the next time someone commits a mass murder with a firearm?  I would gladly give up my little pistol if this could magically prevent another Vegas, but we all know that it wouldn’t.

    So I ask again, what is a thoughtful, useful, potentially successful approach?

     

    • #3
  4. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    But after Vegas, I am having qualms. Deep, sleep-disturbing qualms. No proposed gun control mechanism would have stopped this guy. Nor most of the other mass murderers who used guns.

    One of the things that my friends are talking about, but no one wants to say, is how using a bump stock LIMITED the carnage at Vegas. Spraying bullets indiscriminately is not how one commits violence, it’s how one acts out a Rambo fantasy.

    Look at movies that have a clued-in armorer on the set… Blackhawk Down, Lone Survivor, Act of Valor. They show the bad guys spraying and praying a full mag in the general direction of the target, and the good guys responding with effective, regulated aimed fire. If he was as deliberate with his aim as he was with his preparations, the horror would have been much, much greater.

    • #4
  5. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    And Peggy Noonan had a terrific piece in the Wall Street Journal on why Americans own guns. The whole thing is behind their paywall, but here’s an excerpt from FoxNews.com.

    • #5
  6. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    It’s also been reported that the shooter had a DOPE (Data On Previous Engagements) chart in his room. What this means is that he took the time to learn where his rounds were actually landing at long distances and wrote it down.

    The dude had this planned out loooooong in advance. It takes a special kind of sicko to do this.

    • #6
  7. M1919A4 Member
    M1919A4
    @M1919A4

    I agree with you, @kevincreighton on the point of “spray and pray”, and in the dim, dark reaches of the long ago past, I trained as a machine gunner for Uncle Sam.

    I have wondered, too, how many of the over 500 “injured” were wounded by rifle fire and how many of that number were otherwise hurt by being knocked down, stepped on, and so forth.  Perhaps @docjay can help us there.  (I do not mean to belittle the “otherwise” injuries; I am just curious about the shooter’s  markmanship.)

    My initial reaction was the same as that of @teejaw: once the subject is accept for discussion, the argument is lost (like the lady and gentleman discussing price; character already has been established.)  Kevin is making  me rethink that.

     

    • #7
  8. Kevin Creighton Contributor
    Kevin Creighton
    @KevinCreighton

    M1919A4 (View Comment):
    I have wondered, too, how many of the over 500 “injured” were wounded by rifle fire and how many of that number were otherwise hurt by being knocked down, stepped on, and so forth.

    The reports I’m seeing are about 50% of the injured were trampled, and I honestly think that’s a bit low.

    There are a number of my friends who are saying “Yeah, right, like the NRA is EVER going to be national reciprocity and the SHARE Act passed. They gave up bump stocks and in return got bupkis.”

    To which I say, if you could travel back in time to 1997 and tell gun owners back then who were suffering under the restrictions of the Assault Weapons Ban, that, 20 years from now, they’d be buying $400 AR-15 rifles, $600 AR “pistols” that were effectively SBR’s and that 30 round mags would cost less than $10 apiece, they’d lock you into the looney bin and throw away the key.

    Things change.

    • #8
  9. livingthehighlife Inactive
    livingthehighlife
    @livingthehighlife

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    Is our gun ownership, including mine, important enough to exalt the Second Amendment over the lives that will be lost the next time someone commits a mass murder with a firearm? I would gladly give up my little pistol if this could magically prevent another Vegas, but we all know that it wouldn’t.

    Is a companies need to delivery supplies important enough to continue licensing truck drivers?  Is yours and my need for transportation important enough to allow ownership of cars?

    The elephant in the room with all these discussions is the evil that drives the use of the tool, truck, car or other weapon.  Society knows there’s evil, but we don’t want to talk about it because it’s uncontrollable.  My neighbor is a nice family, friendly, with wonderful little kids.  While we can legislate the limitations of weapons, we can’t stop him if he turns on his wife and kids in the middle of the night.

    • #9
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.