Court Ruling on Machinegun Possession

Dr. Keith said:
Our Originalist Supreme Court will quickly realize that there was no right to own a machine gun at the time of the founding fathers. That’s what principled legal review looks like.
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That was the one thing I felt that Heller resolved well. "Arms" at the time referred to modern weapons that a soldier/militia man would carry, and just like the first and fourth amendments were expanded to speech and searches that didn't exist at the time, "arms" should also be redefined with the times. The principle that the right guards is still the same.

But I think it's long past time for us to acknowledge that a Tory uprising is no longer particularly likely and the ability of citizens to quickly form a modern equipped army is no longer needed. Hunting and sporting firearms, fine. It's definitely a legitimate part of our culture. Semis and full autos are simply not needed, and the demonstrable abuses of semi auto availability outweigh the pissant convenience of tacticool weekend shooters.
 
HansMustermann said:
Oh you absolutely can. I think you misunderstand what is it there that makes it legal.

It's NOT whether the crank is the sole source of power. After all, a semi-auto AK still has the gas piston to do the actual reloading.

What makes it be not an automatic weapon legally, is that you have to keep interacting with the firing mechanism for it to shoot the next round and the next and so on. In that case, a crank. Put a ratchet with as many teeth as you want to move the trigger X times per rotation, and thus shoot X rounds per rotation, and it becomes legal, because technically you had to do another bit of motion to fire it.

So yeah, you can do something like need another 10° rotation to shoot the next round, and get cranking :p
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I think you misunderstand, I'm too old to be trying to crank it. I'm all for ease of holding the trigger.
 
Use pedals and a chain instead? Make your grandkids crank it? As long as you don't use an electric motor or otherwise make it automatic, you're in the clear :p

Besides, why focus on a minigun anyway? Ask your government to legalize the VX nerve gas instead for private use. A pretty small canister can ensure that in a couple of miles radius there are no squirrels, mice, cats, neighbours, relatives, or anything :p
 
theprestige said:
Tsar Bomba was impractical. Too big for ICBMs. Too big to be dropped from a safe distance by a bomber. At a time when the US was mastering the art of smaller, more efficient nukes, and more accurate vehicles for them, Moscow had to settle for just building bigger nukes. Nukes so big they weren't actually effective as weapons anymore.

What you really want is a B61 dial-a-yield nuke.
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Did I stutter? I want a 58 megaton nuke.

And who said anything about military use such as using bombers or missiles? Like, hello?

I just want one in the basement, with wires connected to all doors and windows. That should deter those pesky neigbours from even thinking about breaking in when I'm on vacation. You just know they're a bunch of anti-prepper SJWs who's love to leave me defenseless when the bombs fall and the cops try to kill everyone else. I have a right to defend my property, dammit :p
 
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Thermal said:
That was the one thing I felt that Heller resolved well. "Arms" at the time referred to modern weapons that a soldier/militia man would carry, and just like the first and fourth amendments were expanded to speech and searches that didn't exist at the time, "arms" should also be redefined with the times. The principle that the right guards is still the same.

But I think it's long past time for us to acknowledge that a Tory uprising is no longer particularly likely and the ability of citizens to quickly form a modern equipped army is no longer needed. Hunting and sporting firearms, fine. It's definitely a legitimate part of our culture. Semis and full autos are simply not needed, and the demonstrable abuses of semi auto availability outweigh the pissant convenience of tacticool weekend shooters.
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I've seen various interpretations of this. One is that it refers to insurgencies of all kinds: Slave revolts, native raids, British loyalists, etc. Since the nascent union didn't have its own standing army, and anyway couldn't deploy it quickly to any emergency even if it did, local communities were expected and empowered to handle their own security.

I think that principle is still very much in effect today. Violence happens. Rape happens. Robbery happens. Home invasion happens. Carjackings happen. Kidnappings happen. What's the proverb? "When seconds count, the police are minutes away."

It's not about being able to quickly form a modern army. It's about communities - and individuals - being able to mount a prompt defense of their lives and property, in the absence of government intervention.

I think the textbook 2nd Amendment scenario in the modern era was Korean shop owners taking up arms to defend their neighborhoods during the LA riots in the 90s. That's what the 2nd Amendment is about, in my opinion: The right to mount a prompt and lethal defense of yourself and your community. The LAPD wasn't able to protect the Korean community. They had to take it upon themselves. And nowadays, when it seems to be largely agreed (though not universally liked) that the police are not required nor intended to put themselves in harm's way for your protection, the right to protect yourself and your community enshrined in the 2nd Amendment becomes even more necessary to preserve.

If you accept this in principle, we can certainly quibble about where exactly to draw the line. Grenades? Machine guns? Nukes? But I suspect that if you accept this in principle, we won't have to quibble much at all.
 
theprestige said:
I've seen various interpretations of this. One is that it refers to insurgencies of all kinds: Slave revolts, native raids, British loyalists, etc. Since the nascent union didn't have its own standing army, and anyway couldn't deploy it quickly to any emergency even if it did, local communities were expected and empowered to handle their own security.

I think that principle is still very much in effect today. Violence happens. Rape happens. Robbery happens. Home invasion happens. Carjackings happen. Kidnappings happen. What's the proverb? "When seconds count, the police are minutes away."

It's not about being able to quickly form a modern army. It's about communities - and individuals - being able to mount a prompt defense of their lives and property, in the absence of government intervention.

I think the textbook 2nd Amendment scenario in the modern era was Korean shop owners taking up arms to defend their neighborhoods during the LA riots in the 90s. That's what the 2nd Amendment is about, in my opinion: The right to mount a prompt and lethal defense of yourself and your community. The LAPD wasn't able to protect the Korean community. They had to take it upon themselves. And nowadays, when it seems to be largely agreed (though not universally liked) that the police are not required nor intended to put themselves in harm's way for your protection, the right to protect yourself and your community enshrined in the 2nd Amendment becomes even more necessary to preserve.
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I specifically didn't discount the right and need for firearms in defense of self and others, although for clarity I should have specifically included it. Absolutely, 100% we have the right to fight back (importantly, not just "defend") with lethal force, including firearms.

If you accept this in principle, we can certainly quibble about where exactly to draw the line. Grenades? Machine guns? Nukes? But I suspect that if you accept this in principle, we won't have to quibble much at all.
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Agreed. My quibble zone is modified/military weapons, designed to +/- indiscriminately take out large amounts of people in front of you quickly. The odds of an ordinary citizen being in battlefield conditions facing an onslaught of Huns are not realistic enough to balance against the very real corpses in Sandy Hook and Vegas.
 
a_unique_person said:
Since he was after one particular person, maybe not. If his aim was to kill or injure as many people as possible, then yes.
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I am a former Army sniper (it’s true). At the rock-throwing range this guy shot from, against a stationary exposed target, I would much prefer a closed bolt semi. As he was always going to have a very short window of time to shoot and as he was not an especially competent marksman, a fully automatic weapon would absolutely have improved his chances of a fatal hit.
 
sarge said:
I am a former Army sniper (it’s true). At the rock-throwing range this guy shot from, against a stationary exposed target, I would much prefer a closed bolt semi. As he was always going to have a very short window of time to shoot and as he was not an especially competent marksman, a fully automatic weapon would absolutely have improved his chances of a fatal hit.
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How would a full auto have improved his chances, if he was not especially competent and had a very short window of time?

The first shot would be the most well-aimed, and then the gun would start to climb and drift off-target. If he wasn't prepared for that and able to effectively control it, the subsequent shots would tend to be less accurate, more likely to miss.
 
Ranb said:
What was the reason for the lack of MG mass shootings prior to the FOPA and internet sales that drove up the prices?
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The lack of mass shootings generally. The rate of mass shootings has increased more than 10 fold since the turn of the century. For the entire time we’ve had a real epidemic of mass shootings, machine guns have either been difficult to acquire or it’s taken a long time to do so.

Are you arguing that if machine guns become as easy to acquire as AR15s or handguns the numbers of injured and killed in mass shootings will not increase?


Spring loaded bump stocks (invented in 2002) were only illegal after 2006. The other bump stocks (invented in 2008?) were only illegal from 2019 to 2024.
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Relevance?

Bump stocks have been legally available for little more than a single decade, yet their use in a single instance accounts for more victims than all the mass shootings combined before that one use.
 
theprestige said:
How would a full auto have improved his chances, if he was not especially competent and had a very short window of time?

The first shot would be the most well-aimed, and then the gun would start to climb and drift off-target. If he wasn't prepared for that and able to effectively control it, the subsequent shots would tend to be less accurate, more likely to miss.
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Because he was not a competent shot, he needed an element of luck. He could not hit with one shot, and with a single shot weapon he was never going to get a hit on Trump once the first round missed. The only way to improve his odds is to have more rounds moving in the first burst. He fired for 6 seconds, 8 shots. I am much better than he and I can fire 3 aimed shots at 150 meters, but only if I’ve preselected the targets.

With a machine gun (an M240 series for example), if his initial point of aim was low and left, the up and right climb would have walked the rounds right into the orange pumpkin. If his initial point of aim was anywhere else, he could have watched the impacts and walked the rounds on target.

With an automatic weapon (like a SAW), same principle, except for faster rate of fire for more rounds in the first burst and less climb.

With an assault rifle on three round burst, no real benefit except the chances for a missed first round to get lucky with the second and third rounds.
 
HansMustermann said:
Did I stutter? I want a 58 megaton nuke.
..
I just want one in the basement, with wires connected to all doors and windows. That should deter those pesky neigbours from even thinking about breaking in when I'm on vacation.
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I want my mutated anthrax.

You know, for duck hunting.

 
I don't know why you both can't have your nukes, chemical and biological weapons. As long as you are responsible citizens, it shouldn't be a problem.....
 
theprestige said:
How would a full auto have improved his chances, if he was not especially competent and had a very short window of time?

The first shot would be the most well-aimed, and then the gun would start to climb and drift off-target. If he wasn't prepared for that and able to effectively control it, the subsequent shots would tend to be less accurate, more likely to miss.
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I guess the most skeptical approach would be to conduct the experiment.
 
Fully automatic may not improve the chance of hitting a specific target. It will, however, cause a larger amount of damage to an area of people.
 
HansMustermann said:
Did I stutter? I want a 58 megaton nuke.

And who said anything about military use such as using bombers or missiles? Like, hello?

I just want one in the basement, with wires connected to all doors and windows. That should deter those pesky neigbours from even thinking about breaking in when I'm on vacation. You just know they're a bunch of anti-prepper SJWs who's love to leave me defenseless when the bombs fall and the cops try to kill everyone else. I have a right to defend my property, dammit : p
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Segnosaur said:
I want my mutated anthrax.

You know, for duck hunting.
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This is a conversational trope I wish would die in a fire. It was never funny. It was never producing the rhetorical advantage people imagined.

If you don't agree on a human right to possess and use lethal force, just say so. If you believe in such a right, and want to have a good faith discussion about where to draw the line, then do that. It's past time these conversations moved beyond this bad faith, childish nonsense.
 
As I was saying, for military use, a short burst absolutely does increase the chances of hitting the target you're aiming at.

That's in fact the WHOLE idea (past WW1 and Maxim machineguns.) RL isn't a video game where you need to put enough bullets into a target to deplete it hp. If you just wanted to do more damage, you'd use a higher calibre. And people no longer just march slowly om large groups against machineguns like in WW1. What the situation has been since WW2 or so, at least for assault rifles, is that some guy that just popped up at 300m away, want at least one round to hit that barstard.

Essentially what the use-case for a SMG or assault rifle was for the last 60 years or so, was being a shotgun with a very tight grouping, so it actually works at 300m or so.

(Or at least that's the oversimplified version. There are also factors like suppression, cover fire, etc, but we'll skip that for now.)
 
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