User Panel
Posted: 2/25/2007 6:16:10 PM EDT
In another thread people said they think "there has never been a LEGALLY owned FA used in a crime". Then I mentioned the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and people responded that that happened before the NFA. Like that somehow makes "legally owned" not count, since there was no tax stamp and registration.
Lets see. Add 2 plus 2....hmmm...carry the 0 and we get.....um...uh oh. Harsh tax and registration of firearms works, since full auto crime decreased with the institution of harsh taxing and registration. Now the response of course is that the "there has never been a LEGALLY owned FA used in a crime" statement states legally owned full auto. So what about illegal full auto crime. How often does that happen? Does it happen often? Does it happen as often as semi-auto crime, legally owned or illegally owned? Seems that if we had harsh registration/taxation of all firearms that 70 years from now we would have a similar situation as we have with full auto now. Low crime with them. Come on ARFCOM. Shoot me down. PS I own lots of guns, including NFA stuff. Some of you need liberal argument training. |
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I guess they never heard of the North Hollywood shootout/bank robbery? Or am I supposed to come up with legally owned FA?
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When guns are outlawed...
None of the outlaws bothered to register their NFA weapons. Full auto crime has probably increased, if only because we have more criminals. |
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I recall a cop of all people offing someone with a legally owned Mac 10
I beleive |
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Yes. You are supposed to come up with legally owned NFA. That was the argument, but when I mentioned pre-NFA, that somehow did not count, meaning that NFA obviously works. |
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Or, the NFA is proof that wealthy people do not commit crimes with expensive guns.
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What he sais. |
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The only thing it really proves is that people who are willing to submit themselves to a white glove inspection and live under a microscope are people who are extremely unlikely to commit crimes.
CJ |
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I agree. |
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So if we made semi-auto go under the same rules over time, semi-autos would fade away and only the "elite gun owners" would have them, and crime with them would be low. |
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It's pretty undeniable that if you could actually remove the guns from society that these crimes would dwindle. The problem is that all legislation targets law-abiding owners and nothing effective is done about keeping them away from criminals who do not care what the law says. This of course is notwithstanding the constitutional issue.
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The 1934 NFA was the first step towards resrtictions on our 2nd Ammendment, don't ever forget it
If you have the chance to go through the Book of Colt/Thompson's, you would be shocked on who leagally owned Thompsons |
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mjohn you don't want to think that way. Your giving the antis bad ideas. |
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I remember hearing the same. ETA: www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcfullau.html Mid way down the page. |
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Allow me to point out that there are two document cases of legally owned machineguns being used in a crime. In the first instance, a police officer ( ! ) used a personally-owned MAC SMG to murder an informant. I cannot recall the second instance, maybe someone out there can help me out. I do remember reading about it so I'm certain there are two. |
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I had heard the story as being something more akin to a job related firearm; that is, an MP5 or M16 (M4?). IIRC he "went ticky in the head" during a domestic with his wife, or during an IAD inquiry. There are cases of NFA (qualifying) weapons being used in crimes... but 99.9999% were after they were stolen from registered owners, .mil or LE agencies. Things like the North Hollywood shootout were illegally manufactured from the get-go, and as such don't count. |
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Believe me. I don't. But I am amazed at how many gun owners are bad at arguing their point. I'm trying to play devils advocate in order to help us argue with liberals. |
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even if you're talking about specific intrusions on the 2A, there were Jim Crow laws before 1934 that were meant to restrict blacks from owning guns. Anybody got a source for that? |
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Ya' know, maybe this is a little off-topic, but I've seen alot of combat footage(Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq). Most military rifleman don't shoot full-auto. They're taught that in basic training. Point being, I think full auto is way over-rated and is only useful in sub-guns if anything. And yes, I've shot full auto plenty, it's wasteful as well as overheats the barrel way too damned quick.... counter-productive in my opinion.
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So, if the NFA was in place prior to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the massacre wouldn't have happened? Capone and his thugs would have obeyed another law? |
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The NFA is indeed proof of something, but most people miss what it is.
It was an effect of the St Valentine's Day Massacre. The SVDM was a product of a turf war between two gangs. The turf war was made possible by Alcohol Prohibition. If you recall, Alcohol Prohibition was in place because several well meaning Christian Temperance group managed to persuade all the right people that banning stuff would solve a bunch of social ills. Instead, it triggered the rise of illegal industry and gang warfare. We learned the lesson and passed the 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th Amendment, but then we went and heavily regulated a class of weapons because of criminal use. Tell me that makes sense. You can't. We STILL haven't learned the lesson sufficiently, because we still have politicians and groups of people wanting to punish the people for the conduct of criminals. |
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Close to an effective argument against me. I would interject something like "you could argue the same point that if we all limited cars to a max speed of 30 MPH that the number of traffic deaths would be drastically reduced." Or cut the "It's pretty undeniable that if you could actually remove the guns from society that these crimes would dwindle" sentence and replace it with an argument that cocaine is outlawed but it still is running rampant". |
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The spirit of this discussion, playing the devil's advocate and all... it's a good idea.
So what are stratagies for fighting the idea that the NFA works? Someone mentioned that most of the crimes committed using NFA weapons were committed with weapons posessed illegally. Such is the case with ALL firearms. Only a miniscule amount of gun crime AS A WHOLE is committed with legally owned guns. The reason there are so few instances of legally owned NFA guns being used in crime has plenty do do with the fact that there are so few of them. How many legally owned firearms are there in the US? How many legally owned NFA weapons are there in the US? What's the ratio of legally owned regular firearms used in crimes to that of legally owned NFA guns used in crimes? ETA: If it can be found that NFA weapons are used less in ALL crimes, whether legally owned or not, there is an argument there as well. Since illegally owned guns are not subject to the tax, are mostly stolen, and can be made by converting semi-auto's illegally, then limited availability loses steam as an argument. All that remains is that NFA firearms (legally owned or not) simply don't get used as much in crimes as regular guns. Then you have an argument for repealing the NFA, they're not the criminal's weapon of choice. Statistics since 1934 support this. |
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What you're saying is basically, "When they outlaw all guns, only outlaws will use guns in crimes". The fact is that barely 1% (or maybe even less) of all criminals who are armed during any crime are armed with LEGALLY-ACQUIRED "assault weapons". How much lower do you think that can go? Oh and BTW... Our Constitutional rights do not ebb and flow or come and go with the annual crime reports. It's up to the Antis to prove that our Constitutional rights are contingent upon and based on what criminals use to commit crimes. The burden of proof is on them to show that our rights depend on what the crime stats say. |
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Well said DoubleFeed! |
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Very nice. |
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You would be surprised how many liberals think so. |
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THANK YOU! |
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You want to end the crime, put the thugs out of business. Ending prohibition worked, it will work again. My .02. |
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The other instance was also a cop if I remember right. He waved an NFA weapon at a spouse or GF during a domestic situation. |
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yup |
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We really need a argument/counter-argument document with effective counter arguments to common liberal thinkings.
A bad argument against gun control, even when the gun control statement is beyond stupid, hurts us and makes us look dumb. |
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What we really need is someone who has the cojones to get on a national stage and shout these morons down in front of the nation. Theres no one to speak for us right now, IMHO. |
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Cause that makes us sound educated and like we thought things through. |
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I'm not sure how prohibition applies. It played a part in the passing of the NFA, but that fact has nothing to do with reasons why the NFA should be repealed. I am looking for wasy to aregue against the NFA. My original post, which you quoted here, has been edited to add more text. I apologize for taking so long to add it in. Please feel free to comment on the additional material. |
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I think its just proof that when you have something as asinine as prohibition and the mafia starts to use FA, that you can switch them to Semi-Auto with the NFA out of pure convenience.
Doesn't mean a damn thing. Less people are not getting killed. People are not really safer. That was until prohibition was repealed. |
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It might bear repeating...
NFA weapons (meaning full auto, sbr, etc.) are not by any means unavailable. Any person intent on using one in a crime need not bother wih spending $15,000 to buy one. They can steal one, convert a semi, etc. The fact that obtaining one LEGALLY is so difficult only illustrates that law-abiding people don't commit crimes with legally owned machine guns. The fact that illegal machine guns are stolen, sold, converted from semi, manufactured in basements, etc. means that they are not difficult to acquire. Since there is no impediment to their acquisition by someone intent on using one in a crime, there is no reason why more of them aren't used in crime. Yet, more crimes are committed using non-NFA type weapons, despite the fact that criminals have easier, faster, and less expensive access to them than law-abiding citizens. |
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Plenty of illegal full auto's are out there, and they do get used in crimes sometimes.
saw'd off shotguns get confiscated all the time, the NFA did nothing to stop them. |
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The better or harder argument to counter regarding gun-control is this: WE say that "registration leads to confiscation". THEY point to the NFA and say "Well it's been over 70 years now since registration of automatic firearms began... there's never been even a hint that registration leads to confiscation of NFA weapons". Who's right? |
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mjohn, you have a good point here. I've been on the Washington Post Blog trying to counter what these liberals think. They keep spewing the same lines over and over. Not to hijack the thread, but here are some of what these people are saying. I can remove these or start a new thread if you want me too.
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Agreed, but I'm asking about the ratio. Are the illegal NFA weapons being used to commit crime significant compared to the illegal non-NFA weapons? We know that the crime rate is almost non-existant for legally owned NFA gear. We know that the crime rate for legally owned regular guns is also extremely low. I believe if you compare the ratios, you might find that they are similar. Let me do a little research, and I'll see what I can come up with. |
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...wow |
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THE NFA IS A REGULATION NOT A BAN!
The NFA is a regulation as the Second Amendment allows for a "...well regulated Militia..." and thus regulations are legal unless they are tantamount to a ban by placing too heavy of a burden upon the citizens. A certain amount of "gun control" is legal as long as once again it does not create a situation that would be tantamount to a ban. That said, the 1968 GCA "sporting purposes" clause and the 1986 FOPA machinegun restriction are bans because they prevent ownership all together of certain weapons that were clearly the type inteded by the Second Amendment in order to maintain a free state. The AWB, which in its very name is a "BAN," is also not gun control in the sense that it does not seek to regulate ownership, but a ban as it seeks to prevent ownership. The AWB as written in 1994 and as proposed in HR 1022 in 2007 are thus unconstitutional. If the NFA was to increase the tax or complicate the registration it would be in danger of placing too high a bar to ownership and become less like regulation and more like a ban. The legal test for determining what is regulation and what constitutes a ban I leave to the Supreme Courts, but I fear they will never have the strength of conviction to provide that. So, gun control is the regulation of firearms not the banning of them. The liberals use words like "gun control" to hide the reality of what it really is a "gun ban." I believe the more dangerous weapons like machineguns were well regulated by the NFA and that the restrictions contained in parts of the 1968 GCA, but the 1986 FOPA went too far and was never warranted as there had never been any crime committed with an NFA registered legally owned full automatic weapon. |
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