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Question of the Day: Why Not Machine Guns?

Robert Farago - comments No comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS_cbwuDpg4

If The People of the Gun accept ANY ammunition magazine capacity restriction laws the legislative limitation leads straight down a slippery slope—from 20 rounds (CO) to 10 rounds (MA, HI, etc.) to seven rounds (NY) to no bloody rounds (UK). If Americans accept bans on “assault rifles” (CA) that leads to bans on all semi-automatic firearms (Providence city ordinance). Now, switch it around. If we don’t accept mag limits, why shouldn’t we be able to purchase 50-round mags in fully automatic guns? It may seem like a strange question in these dark days of civilian disarmament where gun grabbers deliberately conflate semi-automatic rifles with machine guns, but have at it. What’s wrong with law-abiding Americans owning “high capacity” machine or sub-machine guns? By the same token, what’s right with it?

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “Question of the Day: Why Not Machine Guns?”

  1. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but there is nothing at 6:19. The trigger finger at 2:00 is just silly. He is on a range talking about ergonomics with the muzzle facing the targets. What’s the big deal?

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    • +1

      Most people couldn’t afford to feed one anyway. 5 minutes on the range and you blow your ammo budget for the year.

      Reply
    • This is what happens when women (soccer moms and otherwise) have any say in politics. You’ll notice that increases in the size & scope of bureaucratic power have become greater after the passage of the 19th Amendment.

      Before anyone points out token conservative/libertarian females, let me just say this: “The exception does not invalidate the rule.”

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      • My life is filled with conservative women, and their input is valuable. I strongly disagree with your idea that women in politics is the harbinger of entitlement programs, etc.

        The 19th amendment seems like a “symptom” and not the cause –, I’d say it’s not women, per se, but rather the progressive mentality of “change” and inclusion and equality/”fairness” for all.

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  2. If it’s common for police to have machine guns then I want one too. If it’s common for police to have a bazooka in their squad car then I want one too. It’s about balance of power. The more power the state routinely projects on its citizens the more power I want to balance it out.

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    • +100,000

      I agree completely with this, though to my knowledge most police departments in my area don’t have full auto AR’s.

      Not that I would buy one either, I can barely afford ammo as it is.

      I mean before I lost everything in a tragic boating accident.

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    • I too draw the line at the regular police because if they can have it then so should the citizen. Truth be told, you can do just about anything with a twenty round magazine (hard to imagine needing more in a defensive situation) and it does not impact handguns at all.
      Full auto really only helps a bad guy kill alot of people in a crowd, and is made more effective with a 50-100 round drum (which also is only truly logical with full auto). Full auto and 50-100 round drum could kill hundreds in the right situation, almost could be classified as a dangerous device.

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  3. There’s nothing wrong or illegal about a citizen owning a FA weapon. But, at what point do we draw the line, if any? For my own personal belief I think that weapons that are not explosive or launch explosive warheads are legal for citizen use. And I don’t much care for flamethrowers, but I’m not sure what category they come under.

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    • I saw Son of a Gun restore a flamethrower. I don’t have much actual *use* for one, but it would be hella fun to play with!

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    • There may be legitimate LOCAL regulation of explosive or flame-throwing devices – e.g., requiring storage such that they will not harm close neighbors in accidents – but it’s certainly our right to own them.

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  4. Well, today we live in a society where total cowards are voting all our rights away. The majority now days want to be “taken care of” by their government and they don’t want to actually make any real decisions in their life – they would prefer their entire path laid out before them already. They want regulation on everything including items that the government has no business regulating and totally get freaked out over things they don’t understand. They don’t actually want to be free – they want to be slaves, regulated, controlled, and “feeling” safe and call it freedom. This is why we can’t easily just buy a machine gun or make it ourselves.

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    • You said, “The majority now days want to be “taken care of” by their government ”

      Oh, they’re being taken. Care of. Two words: Police State.

      Reply
  5. Not yet. Pick your battles. Eventually, after suppressors, short-barreled weapons, and AOW’s get removed from the NFA.

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  6. As I have mentioned time and again to my fence-straddling family – a gun is a gun is a gun. Whether it’s a single-shot Martini-Henry or an AR-15, it will do what it’s meant to do when used for its intended manner: It will kill. It is the person behind the trigger who is ultimately responsible for what happens in front of the barrel. So whether it’s a semi-auto 1911 or a full auto Thompson, there is intrinsically no difference.
    In summary, whether I run over a pedestrian with an 18 wheeler or a Prius, if I kill that pedestrian, I should be tried for homicide. Not the ownership of the vehicle.

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  7. Uncle Sam trusted me with a select fire weapon for 21 years. Upon retirement, I have to get and pay for special permission to own one. WTF Over.

    The 99% paying the price for the 1%. FUBAR

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  8. Today she vows she will win on the amendment vote. Which she will lose and by BIG number possibly. and so she cries like Obama does today over this and vow vow vow. Keep the pressure up!

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  9. Re the “gross motor skill of grabbing a handful of rear slide”. FYI, that’s actually a fine motor skill.

    A gross motor skill is stand, walk, run, swim – nothing more complicated. It’s a common mistake in the gun community. If it involves hands and fingers, it’s almost certainly a fine motor skill.

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  10. I love it when haters take the time to write these blogs, picking apart and ranting over people who are moving and shaping the industry. The post is tired, real tired…

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  11. “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state…”
    It is very simple: the security of the United States, and the freedom of its citizens, relies on the arms and fighting spirit of the People. This military thing that we are paying for is necessary only to the extent that it is needed to travel to other places.

    1. The defense of this country ultimately falls to the people in it, as recognized by the founders. The defense of my home is on my shoulders, the police have no duty to protect. Therefore, the police should be armed with sticks (as they were) to remind people to be polite. The People should be armed with everything.

    2. The President, aka the Commander in Chief, has every right to call on the citizens to defend the US against invaders. The concept of a standing army is rather off with what we should have. A “standing army”, here, is defined as an army that stands around. Trust me, I did enough of that. A “well regulated militia”, then, shall be defined as intended by the founders: “Regulated” as in trained, “militia” as in the able people of fighting age.

    3. The NFA was created because the feds were outgunned by people who were doing what they had every right to do, that is, make and drink alcohol. That the feds thought they could interfere with the making and drinking of alcohol is proof that the feds are not always very bright. That they then used this as an excuse to prevent people from possessing weapons in common use is proof that people are easily mislead.

    4. Technology changes. Every American has the right to keep and bear “arms”. Hypothetically, let us then define “arms” as any man portable weapon system. Personally, I see no reason why Bill Gates shouldn’t have an F22 or similar, if he cares to spend that much money on it. I’m betting he doesn’t want it that badly. I can’t afford one (at $361 million each) let alone fly one, but there is no reason to forbid me having, and arming, one.

    In summary: It is the right of the people to possess any weapon they see fit. If you don’t want to live next to somebody who has an M-28 Davy Crockett, then get off my lawn. Although, the prohibitive cost, coupled with the difficulty in safely maintaining it and the relatively low yield, make it an unlikely buy at best. Think some idiot is going to sneak it into the sports arena? Not likely, when every person there *could* be armed with an M-2 .50BMG. Ultimately, the gun grabbers like to say that every pro-gun law presented will take us back to “the wild west”. My stats-o-matic is fresh out of firearms deaths per 100 people in any given 19th century town, though it would be an interesting study, and now it’s going to bug me until I find something useful.

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  12. I’d be fine just getting rid of the short barrel rifle/shotgun ban first. Then we can work on the FA ban. Why my rifle has to have a 16″ barrel is beyond me.

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  13. Full auto rifles are protected by the Second Amendment. The word Arms in the Second Amendment means Ordinary Military Equipment.

    The term “Well Regulated” in the Second Amendment meant “Well Manned and Equipped ” in 1791 as was determined in the 1939 United States v. Miller case after referencing the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The concept of Government Regulation, as we understand it today, did not exist at the time.

    United States v. Miller also determined that the term “Arms” refers to “Ordinary Military Weapons” (not crew operated). American Citizens have the right to Keep and Bear, which means Own and Carry, any weapons that a soldier carries into battle. That includes past, present and future weapons. A Militia consisted of armed volunteers willing to fight with their personal arms and not under government control.

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    • Another interesting aspect of United State vs. Miller was that in arguing the case, the government evaded the fact that the NFA was an imposition on the rights granted in the 2A by pushing the case that the NFA Tax Stamps were for raising revenue and not to control guns.

      It’s entirely consistent that we ought to be able to pay our tickets and gain access without further interference.

      I believe the defendant, Miller, was charged with having a short barreled shotgun and the judges ruled that this was not an “ordinary military weapon” since it was not used by the military; later it was shown that the Army did in fact order short barreled shotguns for use during WWI but this was suppressed in the case of these hearings.

      And so we stand now…

      Reply
  14. Here’s hoping there’s a voter backlash anyway. BIG TIME. Voters should realize they’ll be back, and eliminate them from their jobs.

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  15. To be honest I don’t understand why there hasn’t been any serious challenge to the Hughes Amendment. There was a mention of the ban in Heller, mentioning that the ban ‘might be unconstitutional’ (if the second amendment was read a certain way). Currently supporting the ban seems to hinge upon machineguns being considered ‘dangerous and unusual’ weapons. But, personally, I could see an argument being made that pre-1986 machineguns are certainly more ‘dangerous’ than post-1986 machineguns. Such being the nature of advances.

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  16. This is a place police won’t go unless someone is murdered.
    There was a video of his that got a lot of attention where he tasered a woman in front of her kids.
    She was charged with child endangerment, assault, and so on. And convicted. And not only that, she deserved it and then some.
    Like it or not, the law is on his side.

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  17. Hey while we are at it (at keeping w/ the ruskie theme) how about ballistic knives? Maybe have something about that over at the truth about knives? “Arms” means weaponry not just firearms. Nice subgun would love to have one 🙂

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  18. I have a 716 Patrol and it does have some issues which Sig is going to resolve. I’m not going to bash Sig too much about the issue, but I will say the quality control has slipped a bit. The customer service there is worth the price of the gun. Very fast and fair.

    What I want to say about the article above is the writer obviously did not examine the 716 he had. It does not have a Hammer forged barrel and anyone who has ever owned one would know. I could tell from the pictures it was not hammer forged.

    I spoke to Sig this week and got an offiical reply to the question. The 716 has a button rifled barrel!!! I wish gun writers would get it right because that was part of the reason I looked at the 716.

    In a google search I found severl “experts” writing that the 716 has a CHF barrel…. when it does not!

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  19. I can think of one good reason why not: self-defense. Nearly all the scary things the prohibitionists say about “assault weapons” are actually true of fully automatic weapons. They’re not suitable for hunting or self-defense because they really *are* weapons of war (either that or incredibly expensive range toys).

    Where the rubber meets the road for the Second Amendment these days is self-defense. That’s an individual right that only a lunatic would argue against, whereas talk of fighting your own government with guns is guaranteed to make you look like a lunatic to everyone else. As long as we can show that guns protect families and children, we have a winning hand. (Even if we couldn’t show it, we’d still be right, but that’s a different conversation.)

    Is there anything inherently wrong with having them? No. Is having them restricted undermining the Second Amendment in any practical way? No. Machine guns serve no useful purpose in civilian life (and police are civilians, too) and despite the anti-gun lobby’s successful disinformation campaign, the line between full-auto and everything else is a pretty clear and easy one to draw. We’d be wise to keep it.

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    • So you’re saying you need a high capacity mag and a semi automatic weapon to defend against a home invasion consisting of multiple assailants, but you dont need the capacity to deliver suppressing fire? How does that work?

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  20. To the author,

    Your argument would only begin to be slightly less illogical as a result of either of two fictional presumptions. 1. That the second amendment dealt primarily with the right to fire arms as opposed to bearing them. (Or) 2. That the first amendment dealt with some sense of the right to abdtractly posses speech as opposed to using speech.

    You’re short comings are clearly a result of you falsely believing either of these imperatives to be true; unfortunately for you, neither are.

    Reply
  21. “Are we really at the point where the majority of Americans trust the police to protect their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms? I don’t think so. But we shall see.”

    OTOH, my sheriff, Terry Maketa of El Paso County, CO, has gone on record saying how he intends to support his citizens’ 2A rights, to the point of not enforcing recent legislation and destroying records rather than turn them over.

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  22. There is no reason why I should be prohibited from owning a machine gun. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t shoot it much, but I wouldn’t need to shoot it much under normal circumstances. Machine guns are for abnormal circumstances.

    Google this phrase: “George Washington gun quotes”. One would think he knew what he was talking about.

    Reply
    • Machine guns are for abnormal circumstances.

      if you’ve seen an FA full mag ammo dump outdoors, you know that the average shooter with a powerful shoulder-fired assault rifle would be doing well to keep all his rounds in a ten foot circle at 100 yards. So, yes, there aren’t many every-day, practical applications for, say, an M14. But shooting one is still good, clean fun, and those who can afford them shoot them every weekend, making the circumstances quite normal.

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      • You fall into a trap if you base your right to a FA on anything but 2A grounds. Sure they’re fun to shoot but that’s not why we have the 2A and that is not why we have the right to FA. Do your homework. We have the 2A to resist and overthrow a tyrannical government. Although things seem to be changing toward that situation lately I’d say its not the situation we normally are in.

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  23. well, here in Maryland we have universal background checks, ballistic fingerprinting, a regulated firearm registry, waiting period. scary black rifle ban, magazine capacity limits. Yet most of the Maryland-recovered crime guns in 2011 were bought in Maryland (in CA I think its actually higher than here – 75%). oh, we have the 5th highest homicide rate in the country.

    if only we didnt have those pesky criminals (i should say: if only baltimore city schools were not minting 00s of new gang members a year).

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  24. Nothing wrong. You have a constitutional and human right to order one online and have it shipped to your door today.

    I think certain weapons are inherently immoral to use, such as hell fire missiles, bunker busters, nukes, etc. This is because they can’t be reliably used in a precise manner. I think this is also the pure libertarian position. For example, I’m horrified at the nuking of Japan, fire bombing of Dresden, drone striking of Afghan wedding parties, etc.

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  25. I will be heading out to Colorado at the end of April and will transfer a rifle to my son. If he wants my XD 45 I will give him that too. He lives in Larimer County where the Sheriff will not enforce thsese new laws.

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  26. I hope this will lead to enough backlash to undo the gains the Progressives have made in Co., and serve as a wake-up call to people in states still run by Americans. Fingers crossed.

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  27. You keep going after FPS but he is producing short movie clips. I dont know for a fact but i would think he has a whole production team behind that camera. He is not some random guy out there by himself shooting with a $500 home camera blowing things up. This makes him no different than what you see in movies or gun shows on tv when they blow things up. His videos are for entertainment purposes only, not educational videos.

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  28. mag cap limits are a non-starter

    Wait, what? That’s not a safe assumption AT ALL.

    Right now “universal background checks” and mag cap limits are at the top of the threat list.

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  29. Good vid. Rob is right, no time for fixing anything in fight. Grab another weapon system and go. If you don’t have any other weapons, get out of town, or behind cover. Don’t just stand there.

    I carry handguns when I am 100% positive, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will not get into a gunfight.
    I carry a rifle and handguns when I think I might.

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  30. For Both Robs,

    How specific of a situation is this intended for? For an in-home, civilian self-defense scenario this makes alot of sense.

    In a run-n-gun scenario on the street I think this proves to be inferior. There are numerous instances (the hollywood shootout comes to mind) where an antagonist transitioned after a jam to his detriment. Identifying types of malfunctions (some are game-ending and a transition is necessary) and quickly resolving them is part of being a rifleman. Easier said than done but that is what training is for.

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  31. There is no reason for machine guns to be restricted. Now, large caliber auto-canon that fire exploding rounds would not necessarily be considered arms and could be regulated under something like the NFA as an explosive device.

    In my opinion, if some psychopath went to shoot up, say, a mall, I’d *WANT* them to be armed with a machine gun and using it on full auto, instead of semi auto!!! Much *LESS* effective, they’ll run out of ammo fast is all that’ll happen. But, what if they had some huge belt-fed weapon with hundreds of rounds of ammo, or a huge drum magazine? Well, in that case, YOU’D SEE THEM COMING and so would everyone else. They’d make it 5 seconds into the building and someone will call the cops. And a fully auto handgun? LOL.

    Let us be realistic here though–people see machine guns as “evil” and “scary”. There are much higher priorities to be worried about if we are to talk about legalizing things or loosening restrictions.

    Mainly, silencers (suppressors). These should not only not be an NFA item, but should be considered a safety device. Hearing loss is a huge deal–once it’s gone it’s gone. There is zero reason for suppressors to be regulated at all. The government should, instead, be encouraging people to buy them. People who are anti-gun and want guns restricted should, instead of wanting suppressors banned, a logical position for them would be to make suppressors REQUIRED (I don’t think they should be, that’d be unconstitutional, but yeah)…

    You’d likely see some indoor ranges start REQUIRING them. Anyone who is pro-children at ALL, regardless of their position on guns, should be pro-suppressor. They don’t make the weapon silent, either, unless it’s a sub-sonic 22 or something (really damn quiet anyway). Anyone who is an environmentalist at all should be pro-suppressor, especially for hunting.

    The strangeness of our laws is you can buy an almost completely silent weapon that fires police body-armor piercing projectiles with no background check at all (a crossbow). But gun users must pay a $200 tax to limit environmental noise pollution. USA! USA! /yeah.

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  32. Very well put. Are you a psychiatrist, psychologist or do you study human behavior? Your comments have helped me understand why gun control advocates act in such a seemingly agitated manner. If someone is at all introspective this information may help.

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  33. If the alarm/dogs/breaking glass got me out of bed, I would grab my “night stand” .38 service revolver (almost completely idiot/failure proof) and assess. If there was time, I would go to the closet and grab the pump shotgun I also keep loaded (mostly idiot/failure proof) before calling the cops. I don’t train for or spend much time thinking about scenarios in which that would not get the job done. I have to admit, if someone was actually shooting at me, I would probably squeeze away at the trigger of whatever I had in my hand until it was over (regardless of whether it was still going bang). Then, if I was lucky enough to be the one to walk away, go change my shorts.

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  34. These folks are not giving me cause to dismiss Alex Jones’ rants about globalists as paranoid delusion and “sensationalism entertainment”…

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  35. DEAD FOR NOW. It’s only as dead as the next horrific school shooting, and I have no doubt that one’s being arranged right now.

    The link between school shootings and gun ban legislation is well-established, if you will just open your mind to it. Just remember this moment.

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  36. “As Marty points out, 150 countries are on board, so what’s not to like?”

    Because the more people who agree with it, the better it is…

    And excuse me if I don’t trust the UN, or any of the countries that are tripping over themselves to sign onto whatever new treaty they have cooked up.

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    • If 150 nations are on board, it’s easy to deduce that 75 of them are de facto dictatorships. No small wonder they want some UN paper to sanctify their blockade of civilian arms. As for the military arms, these guys know the document is just a toothless piece of paper. The UN’s a great organization, though I’ve determined all its legitimate purposes could be filled within a budget of 50K and some Starbucks gift cards.

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  37. Just paid 5-years membership to NRA. After reading this, I think I will sign up for lifetime membership…worth every cent.

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  38. They bid us change the ancient “names,”
    The “seasons” and the “times,”
    And for our measures go abroad
    To strange and distant climes.

    But we’ll abide by things long dear,
    And cling to things of yore,
    For the Anglo-Saxon race shall rule
    The earth from shore to shore.

    Then down with every “metric” scheme
    Taught by the foreign school.
    We’ll worship still our Father’s God!
    And keep our Father’s “rule”!

    A perfect inch, a perfect pint,
    The Anglo’s honest pound,
    Shall hold their place upon the earth,
    Till Time’s last trump shall sound!

    Then swell the chorus heartily,
    Let every Saxon sing:
    “A pint’s a pound the world around,”
    Till all the earth shall ring,

    “A pint’s a pound the world around”
    For rich and poor the same:
    Just measure and a perfect weight
    Called by their ancient name!

    Of course, the scientific nerd in some of us may express a somewhat cumbersome riposte, as follows:

    Replace the inch, we say to thee
    Make each equation neater
    For every scientist in the world
    Will use the same centimeter

    LOL! 😉

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  39. I await the satirizing of this graphic, it will be ever so sweet. Maybe after dinner I’ll open Photoshop and start my own.

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  40. RF has a real hardon for FPS aparently…two articles on him recently! I bet FPS appreciates the extra view on his YouTube account though…lol.

    And FPS ain’t even a cop…go figure?

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  41. People say being restricted to own this type of gun or that type of gun is like not being able to yell fire in a crowded theater. It’s actually quite different. i can say the word fire and have conversations about fire. I can even START a fire. What I can’t do is incite panic to scare people and cause a situation endangering people. I can’t START a fire on someone’s house. Now, this is not comparable to owning a gun, i.e. machine gun…there should be no problem owning one…but yelling fire in a crowded theater is not like owning one…yelling fire in a theater is like target shooting in a crowded neighborhood or shooting into the air blindly…those things are abusing my right to own a gun and creating a dangerous situation. Any restrictions on owning any type of gun, shy of someone proving their unsafe to own a firearm, are unconstitutional. Prove me wrong.

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  42. And I don’t see American’s illegally crossing the border to Mexico because its sooooooo much safer there because of their safe gun laws.

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  43. It’s likely that you disagree with Justice Scalia, et al. but the Second Amendment does not allow civilians to employ many kinds of military weapons despite being a safeguard against governmental tyranny. And despite a robust and generous reading of the amendment, nothing prohibits the state from enacting several common gun control measures in operation today.

    So you probably don’t want to hears this, or believe it, but advocating for a rollback of existing laws (specifically those referred to below) on the basis of being unconstitutional will paint you as radicals, justifiably labeled as unreasonable and unwilling to compromise. In other words, of being the kind of opponent claimed by many gun control advocates. By being to the right of Scalia, the public will slide further for gun control.

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  44. To help keep you safe, and in the name of the children, we need you to sniff anthrax spores and Zyklon-B.
    Liberalism is a mental disorder.

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  45. Full auto AND 50-100 round drum mags are of minimal beneifit defensively. A bad dude in the proper environment could kill several hundred. This is a deadly mix that I would worry about because you could chain a few doors of a crowded theater, and from an upper balcony, spray death in fishtail movements without aiming. Many people would trample one another in an effort to get away. With two or three drums, I could imagine 500 or more dead. A molotov cocktail or two thrown in would finish the job, maybe on flameable material. Truly an ugly vision.

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  46. Colt Sporter – all stock. I’ve been so close several times to trick it out but then I think I’ll just buy another AR to play with. I should have done that when I first got the idea as opposed to now LOL.

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  47. Apparently Hizzoner Cuomo’s vision is the same as Mr Orwell’s:

    “If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”
    George Orwell

    Too bad only one of them was being ironic.

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  48. And how exactly are they regulating IntraState commerce transactions by requiring background checks? Maybe I missed the part in the Constitution that permits the Feds from sticking their nose into private, non-Interstate transactions…then again, this administration doesn’t care about the Constitution.

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  49. I’m enjoying the Obamacare experience on my attempt to comment. It says I’ve left some required fields blank, but they’re filled in. It won’t take my comment.

    Reply

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