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pseudolobster said:
That's the whole, that this ban has nothing to do with whether or not a gun is full auto or not, and it has nothing to do with whether or not a gun can "pierce armor". This is ENTIRELY about what a gun looks like. Full auto is already illegal, "armor piercing" has nothing to do with the gun itself, and a functional grenade launcher is already completely illegal as well.
And it's not just you, tons of people have no idea what this bill actually means. You see the words "assault weapons", and assume those things, when really that term has NO basis in reality, it is a made-up arbitrary term. It is not at all based on the capabilities of a gun, it is based purely on what a gun looks like. Look at the definitions given earlier, it's pistol grip and any 2 of a list of other things. A pistol grip is easier to hold, clearly. Isn't the easiest rifle to hold in the bush the one you might want to use? One of the things on the list is collapsible stock, isn't a collapsible stock very useful while hunting at times? You can carry it easier in a smaller package, and have the stock for when you want to use it. One of the things is a barrel shroud, which just keeps you from burning your fingers when the barrel is hot. NONE of those things have ANYTHING to do with how dangerous a gun is. It's just as dangerous with or without those things, but those things make a gun more illegal. Hence, the law is idiotic.
So it certainly does affect legitimate uses. And above hunting, there is target shooting. These things are produced for a reason, because people want them for their usefulness.
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And besides, it goes beyond "is it useful?" anyway. It's a constitutional right, because the framers recognized that an armed populace is one that will not be subject to tyranny. Having these guns is a protection against government excess, no matter what other uses a gun may or may not have.
Would the population be able to take on our military? Well, yes and no. Head to head in open combat? It'd be tough, we have no ships, planes, tanks, etc. But look at Iraq in the last few years. That's a country of 30million, with little terrain advantages to be gained (just wide open desert), and a populace that was already almost completely unarmed, no real guns to speak of. And yet, through guerrilla warfare, insurgents have been taking on the entire might of the US military for years now.
Now think about this country: 300million people, who are already HEAVILY armed compared to the few weapons available to an average Iraqi citizen, a big country with plenty of places to hide in a lot of advantageous terrain, a LOT of really smart people (you think Iraqi improvised explosive devices are bad, think what a few US-educated chemists could do), and economics on our side. Think about the economics of it: this country is paying for the fighting in Iraq. So the government here shifts, becomes too tyrannical, and the people of the US decide to take back the country. Who in the world is going to pay for the US military to fight its own people? They certainly won't have tax revenues to fund it, no other countries would loan money to a government being over-run like that, how can they finance the fight? They can't. It's very feasible; a terrible notion and something I never hope happens, but feasible. An armed populace makes certain that the abuses of government can never become too extreme.
