morriswalters wrote:Tyndmyr wrote:NFA weapons are not used in crime. Seriously, there's what, two documented murders EVER involving them. One of which was a cop...but yeah, NFA stuff is horribly restricted, expensive, and rare. So no, this is not how weapons are getting into mexico.
This supported my assertion that kits to convert AK were easily available. With a "wink, wink", nod at the law.
Not sold as conversion parts. DO NOT PUT THESE IN YOUR SEMI-AUTO AK TO CONVERT IT TO FULL-AUTO IT IS A SERIOUS OFFENSE.
And we already know how guns get into Mexico, they get smuggled in. There is no other way. And why would a smuggler for the gangs give two cents for the National Firearms Act? The only question is precisely how many come from the US.
No, you misunderstand how the law works here. It's an NFA regulated piece. That means it IS a machine gun, and is legally treated as such. The parts(trigger groups, lower receivers, etc) that make a gun swap to full auto are regulated as full auto firearms. In short, not easily available.
You can't just casually buy both bits to avoid the appropriate regulation. You're going to have to do the exact same work(taxes, extensive paperwork, background check, delays) to buy that bit as to buy it already assembled, because the government understands how assembly works.
cphite wrote:I see it more as a reason to improve the training that police receive. And, while we can certainly agree that more training is needed, saying that they "can't be trusted" or "are not at least competent" is a rather huge exaggeration. All things considered, police in the USA do a pretty good job when it comes to the proper and effective use of firearms.
More training is always good, sure. However, at least in some cases, I do have a diminished sense of trust for police. This isn't merely due to firearm training, mind you, but due to a pattern of police brutality, and a lack of accountability. Living next to Baltimore, particularly recently, will do that to you. Sure, this ain't universal. There are definitely many good, competent cops, and some departments do have effective safeguards...but if you think about it, we're all one mistaken address or anonymous phone call from your door being blown in, your dog shot, you being shot if you twitch wrong in surprise, being slammed to the ground, and your house being ripped apart.
That does not engender trust.
morriswalters wrote:cphite wrote:Consider a home invasion. The average response time for a residential emergency is around 10 minutes. And that is assuming an urban or suburban area. If you live in a rural area it can take far longer. And, that ten minutes is only the time to actually get to your home; that doesn't include assessing the situation, deciding a course of action, etc.
I would ask you to show me data, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist. How you respond to a home invasion will depend on how it goes down. At least twice in the last months people have shot their children who they mistook for an intruder. If the cops need time to evaluate a threat, so do you. If it's dark or you're asleep, at dinner, or otherwise involved in your life, you aren't ready. Even if you keep the gun on you at all times.
There's a great deal of data for defensive gun uses. We'll have to define what definition we're looking for before we go dredging them up, because gun uses come in a variety of types, and many compilations count even cases where the gun was simply displayed, not fired, and the intruder elected to back down. Personally, I think that's best case, but some folks don't count it unless bullets are flying.
As for the rest, well, yeah, a gun isn't going to keep you perfectly safe in all situations. It ain't a force field or whatever. It just gives you better odds, is all. An armed person vs an unarmed one, I'd put money on the armed person winning.
morriswalters wrote:cphite wrote: For street crimes (muggings and the like) a weapon can also be incredibly useful. Again, it doesn't have to be a gun... but a gun is hard to beat assuming you can get to it and use it properly.
The last is a rather large assumption. Even if you carry concealed, once someone gets close enough to touch you the issue will be who ends up in control of the gun if it comes out. This is a cops nightmare scenario, shot with their own gun. It isn't that a gun can't make a difference, but like most things, how much of your life are you prepared to give to it.
Cops have a lot of nightmares, evidently. Can you show actual statistics of cops killed because of this? Lost control of their own gun and shot by it?
If you're looking for data sources, feel free to explore
https://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014. Swap out the year for whichever year you want.
If you don't want to spend the time, the quick summary is that statistically speaking, it doesn't happen. Mass shootings are more statistically significant. 9/11 is more significant, this many years after the fact.
morriswalters wrote:cphite wrote:Hunting is actually very popular in rural areas exactly because it's a way of getting a whole lot of really good meat for a very low amount of money. And in addition to it being a LOT cheaper it can also be a lot higher quality, and not full of steroids, hormones, or antibiotics.
With the stipulation that if many people in rural areas hunted for game on a regular basis, very quickly there would be no game. It isn't a stretch to suggest that most people rural or otherwise are eating meat produced on industrial farms. Hunting is time consuming and safe huntable areas are declining.
Over 6 million deer get killed per year. Just from hunting, mind you. We're not counting the million and a quarter car accidents due to hitting them. This death rate is sustainable, and is managed by various federal agencies, as are other fish and game resources.
Now, we're at something like 35 million cows per year, so yeah, beef is definitely more popular than venison, but the quantity here is still significant, and is heavily region-specific. Not a lotta deer hunting in urban areas comparatively. It'd significantly change consumption patterns in rural areas.
Now sure, cows aren't the only meat eaten, but likewise, deer are far from the only thing hunted. For instance, in 2015, about 13.3 million ducks were harvested. All numbers are US only, of course.