Calling body armor "Military Gear" as in "only the military should be able to buy body armor" is pretty sad, even by Buzzfeed extreme-left standards. Body armor can't kill anyone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_sto...
(aside: this conversation has jumped the shark IMHO, so this is where I'm getting off. peace, literally)
I understand that shooting high powered rifles is a lot of fun, so recreation makes sense with respect to weaponry, but I'm legitimately confused about why a civilian would ever want to own body armor. I can't imagine it's terribly comfortable to wear, and it doesn't seem very fun to me.
Call it a failure of imagination, but to me it seems exceedingly unwise for a law abiding civilian to be entering a situation where body armor would be helpful (and I say this as a firearm owner).
Civilian weapons R&D, mining where explosives are being used, private security work, civilian firearm instruction, protection for targetted individuals e.g. Malcom X / MLK, Journalists in conflict zones (you saw them warn in DC during the protests as well)
Albiet the U.S. has and always will be a special case due to high firearm ownership and rather open ownership of those sorts of things.
Like, we're discussing ad delivery, not the fact that a country allows companies to sell all kinds of weapons, and equipment to the general public... so I think that accurate ad targeting is the least of the problems.
It's just odd.
>I would bet any EU state (and in case of my EU country I can buy an AR-15 or any sort of semi-automatic weapon)
Well in the case of my EU country we can't buy AR-15 or any semi-automatic rifle. The weapons owned here are mostly for hunting, not for sports/self defense.
Because I might even bet that yes, you most definitely can buy an AR15 or any semiautomatic rifle just fine.
Most of Europe allows sports shooting, for example (from the top of my hear what I know for sure): Finland Sweden Norway Estonia Czech Republic Poland Germany France Italy Switzerland Austria Spain
And I haven't even put research into the rest of the countries
These are the types of licences we have: http://armas.mai-gov.info/obtencao-de-licencas/
Now you can buy weapons of the same caliber, for hunting (but you need hunting licensing).
Edit: Ok I need to clarify this. Because we have a different name for specific weapons.
Here we can sell semiautomatic rifles (we call them "carabinas", I didn't label them as rifles so my bad), for hunting (a specific class, for boars, deer, etc). The thing is every weapon that's imported in Portugal gets and inspection and a classification if it's a military weapon or not. An AR15 is considered a military grade weapon by our government standards.
So yes, you can buy some specific models of semiautomatic rifles (for hunting), but you can't buy military grade semiautomatic rifles.
You can't buy an AR15.
> So yes, you can buy some specific models of semiautomatic rifles (for hunting), but you can't buy military grade semiautomatic rifles
The semi-automatic rifles that you can buy in Portugal include the Remington 700 and the Thompson Performance Center T/C. Both can come chambered in .308 Win or 6.5 Creedmoor. Those cartridges have an immense stopping power and are significantly more powerful than the usual .223/5.56 you see in the AR-15 platform. Looking at hunting stores from Portugal, you can easily see those two rifles with 5 or 10 round magazines, same limits as the AR-15 in California.
The Remington 700 has been widely used by the military all over the world, including the US. The M24 sniper rifle is the Remington 700, but with a heavier barrel (in order to use .300 Win which the US Marine Corps preferred).
So, why is in your opinion the AR-15 platform "military grade", and the hunting rifles available in Portugal not? Knowing that both platforms have been used by the military in combat situations, and knowing the hunting platforms usually have much more powerful cartridges?
This is a question you'd need to ask to the portuguese authority that manages weapons importation at the customs, which curiously, it's a procedure that must be done in the presence of a customs oficial, an expert of the Police (PSP), and the General Management of Weaponry and Defense Equipment (Direcção-Geral de Armamento e Equipamento de Defesa).
So I think it's their opinion and expertise that dictates such decisions? No idea! But I don't see it written anywhere that such specific weapon/platform is banned/forbidden.
Curious fact, just came across this information, apparently not so long ago civilians could buy fully automatic rifles in Portugal , you just had to belong to a "club"! It was one of the few countries that allowed that, like Pakistan an Yemen - I had no ideia just found this out. Law changed from pressure of EU and UN.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contr%C3%B4le_des_armes_%C3%A0...
In Switzerland, on the other hand, you can have full auto. Europe is not a gun-free zone like Americans seem to think, from both sides of the aisle.
And they're not objects for public display.
But on the "objects for public display", I sense some hostility towards guns and gun culture in general. Maybe that's your personal perspective being projected onto the whole? My brother in law is from France and he is a huge gun nerd. His weapons were "objects for public display" just like any other weapon in a gun store in America, but I really miss the point here.
Do you feel comfortable around guns? Have you ever experienced a shooting sport? You should definitely try, it is super fun, specially when you have knowledgeable people around. And gun clubs in Europe are super welcoming to new members.
I've grown around hunting weapons, mainly shotguns and rifles since my grandfather was an hunter. But all my education revolving weapons is that they are tools - dangerous tools - to hunt. Everyone of my friends I grew up with had family members that hunted, and some of them became hunters themselves. For sport some shoot plates, but a lot of those places closed own over the years due to polution.
The weapons body are made of wood and usually have some sort of carving in the metal accents. Hell, some of them were literally works of art - with duck/foxes/boars/deer/flower motives. I dont' recall seeing anyone who had weapons that were "military" style, neither in shape or even color/pattern.
Now that I think of it, there was some sort of snob attitude around all of that (like usually only people with a lot of money could buy access to big game properties).
At least this is from my life, in my country living on the countryside. Weapons and the subject revolving weapons are limited to specific contexts, so for me it's just odd a lot of what happens in the USA.
As a kid I found weapons fun, had air pressured rifles to hunt birds and shoot at targets, airsoft guns, etc.
Seems to be selling AR15s just fine.
And "military grade ar15" is not a thing.
Some licenses are strictly for law enforcement for example.
I didn't say military grade ar15 is thing, i said our authorities can consider that a weapon is for military use. It's their call, not mine, or yours.
If you don't mean what you say then don't say it.
I didn't say i didn't meant to say, I'm saying what's in our law.
EDIT: I'm wrong on body armor. I could have sworn at least some of it was restricted and required a license.
In so far as to how dangerous it is, there are 630,000 legal full-auto/select-fire weapons in the US. They do require a Class III license to purchase and own and there have been no new ones since 1986. As I recall, of those 630,000, only 3 have been used illegally since 1934 and 2 of those were, ironically, by cops.
Still, as shown by the media at least, weapons became an accessory in protests and public manifestations over the past... 4 years? Even though they're not used, people have demonstrations of power by presenting their weapons.
But again, my culture is very different from USA, so it's hard for me to grasp such thing.
The scary guns you see on TV just LOOK like military weapons, they don't FUNCTION like them.
And apparently it is much needed:
https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/procurado-por-tenta...
https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/homem-ameaca-mulher...
https://www.cmjornal.pt/portugal/detalhe/gnr-em-alerta-maxim...
Plus we don't have terrorist attacks (domestic and foreigners), we don't have religion fanatics that go on killing sprees, we have a good public healthcare system that helps mentally hill (we don't have serial killers, and the ones we had didn't achieve the pop culture status), we have drug addiction under control, so yeah... it's really not useful to have body armor.
Just to give you some perspective - I live for 11 years in the capital, and even lived near a social project where there was shady people and A LOT of police activity, and never heard a single gun shot.
It is a personal protection item like any other. Is it useful in New York City or Lisbon? Probably not. But the same applies to other PPEs and we don't shame people for wanting to buy/use them. If a person feels safer using X, then fine, use it.
As a society we used to mock people that bought Gas Masks and Respirators, marginalizing them as crazy. Then 2020 happened and all of a sudden every single gas mask, including useless old surplus, was out of stock.
Being odd doesn't mean it's ridiculous, or preposterous, means it's strange to me and my reality. Strange doesn't mean it's good or bad, means it's strange.