Heelers&Chickens_OhMy :
54 pages!?! What a thread!!
I have to say, after days of debating, reading, and talking further with my amazing DBF, I now, more than ever, think that our rights to own guns as citizens needs to be upheld. I am still nervous about automatic weapons, but maybe some one can convince me those are ok to make available too
Why has my thinking come around? Some one (horsejody....or Chicks n Horses? ...some one...) mentioned something to the effect of "we may be safe now, but what about our kids, grandkids, great grand kids....)"
She (or he) is right. It is next to impossible to get rights back once we give them up. By giving up a right to own firearms, we are giving up the only way we have to defend ourselves from the gov't now, or the gov't of the future. Apparently, all you need in other countries to start a revolution (or a rioting dissenting group) is a charismatic leader, some sheeple and weapons. We have just as much a right as they do to overthrow a tyrant. At this moment, I don't see our president as a tyrant, but we don't know if that will change in years to come. We certainly don't know how our children will act...but I will compare this to environmental damage:
Perhaps you don't care, today, if we're using up water in the Ogalala Aquifer hundreds of times faster than it can regenerate. This aquifer supplies over 50% of the water to our fertile mid-western states (9 of them to be exact) where we grow a LOT of corn that feeds our cows, chickens and pigs that we like to eat so much. Perhaps you don't care that this water will be gone in 30 years at the rate we're using - but know that by using water the way we currently are, in 30 years, when your kids are feeding their families, the price of food will skyrocket (meat especially) and hundreds of thousands of people will not be able to water their families in the midwest.
My point is, the 'oh, but we're fine now' simply isn't good enough for me. With gun control, we don't know what the future will bring, but once gun rights are gone, they're gone. Everytime I've seen a right get taken away, I've rarely seen it given back.
Yay, a convert!
OK, seriously, on the "automatic weapon" front - right now in order to get one you do have to have a very specific license. A "fully automatic" weapon is one that you can pull the trigger on and multiple bullets come out. This can be "full auto" and you pull the trigger and your entire clip can be emptied OR a "three-round burst" where you pull the trigger and three rounds come out BIP-BIP-BIP right after each other.
Most firearms that you will find are considered "semi-automatic". The "automatic" part of them is that they get another round ready to fire for you - you don't have to do it yourself.
For example, any revolver or hand pistol could be considered "semi-automatic". When you pull the trigger once, one bullet comes out. Then the gun does something (rotate a cylinder, slide goes back, etc.) which gets the expended round out of the way and puts a new one up for shooting. Then you pull the trigger again and the next round can be shot. One trigger pull = one shot, and no "loading" of the next cartridge is necessary.
A "non-automatic" gun might be something like a pump shotgun, you know like Arnold Schwarzenneger used in Terminator? He could pull the trigger and go BOOM, but before pulling the trigger again he had to manually "pump" the shotgun in order to get rid of the expended shell and line another one up.
Or like in the old Westerns - you know when the gunslingers would "fan" their guns? Shoot a bullet and then sort of "slap" the top of their pistol with the other hand? That was them cocking the hammer back manually, which also rotated the next round into place.
Non-automatic.
Make sense?
54 pages!?! What a thread!!
I have to say, after days of debating, reading, and talking further with my amazing DBF, I now, more than ever, think that our rights to own guns as citizens needs to be upheld. I am still nervous about automatic weapons, but maybe some one can convince me those are ok to make available too
Why has my thinking come around? Some one (horsejody....or Chicks n Horses? ...some one...) mentioned something to the effect of "we may be safe now, but what about our kids, grandkids, great grand kids....)"
She (or he) is right. It is next to impossible to get rights back once we give them up. By giving up a right to own firearms, we are giving up the only way we have to defend ourselves from the gov't now, or the gov't of the future. Apparently, all you need in other countries to start a revolution (or a rioting dissenting group) is a charismatic leader, some sheeple and weapons. We have just as much a right as they do to overthrow a tyrant. At this moment, I don't see our president as a tyrant, but we don't know if that will change in years to come. We certainly don't know how our children will act...but I will compare this to environmental damage:
Perhaps you don't care, today, if we're using up water in the Ogalala Aquifer hundreds of times faster than it can regenerate. This aquifer supplies over 50% of the water to our fertile mid-western states (9 of them to be exact) where we grow a LOT of corn that feeds our cows, chickens and pigs that we like to eat so much. Perhaps you don't care that this water will be gone in 30 years at the rate we're using - but know that by using water the way we currently are, in 30 years, when your kids are feeding their families, the price of food will skyrocket (meat especially) and hundreds of thousands of people will not be able to water their families in the midwest.
My point is, the 'oh, but we're fine now' simply isn't good enough for me. With gun control, we don't know what the future will bring, but once gun rights are gone, they're gone. Everytime I've seen a right get taken away, I've rarely seen it given back.
Yay, a convert!
Most firearms that you will find are considered "semi-automatic". The "automatic" part of them is that they get another round ready to fire for you - you don't have to do it yourself.
For example, any revolver or hand pistol could be considered "semi-automatic". When you pull the trigger once, one bullet comes out. Then the gun does something (rotate a cylinder, slide goes back, etc.) which gets the expended round out of the way and puts a new one up for shooting. Then you pull the trigger again and the next round can be shot. One trigger pull = one shot, and no "loading" of the next cartridge is necessary.
A "non-automatic" gun might be something like a pump shotgun, you know like Arnold Schwarzenneger used in Terminator? He could pull the trigger and go BOOM, but before pulling the trigger again he had to manually "pump" the shotgun in order to get rid of the expended shell and line another one up.
Or like in the old Westerns - you know when the gunslingers would "fan" their guns? Shoot a bullet and then sort of "slap" the top of their pistol with the other hand? That was them cocking the hammer back manually, which also rotated the next round into place.
Make sense?
