But people are creative, and some other method could be used in the future. The Boston Marathon bombing was only 3 deaths, but 264 injured, and that was just a pressure cooker. The Trollhättan school attack was 3 killed with a sword.
Guns are a tool, a very deadly tool, but a tool none the less. Removing them from the US would be near impossible at this point (with the 2nd and 4th amendments getting in the way). It's also not all that popular in this country. Stricter gun laws don't seem to help (see the Buffalo shooting, in a state with red-flag laws).
One interesting point I heard raised is that the phrase "going postal" was born from an era where workplace shootings became common, but have since near disappeared (with background checks being a large part of the reason). Figuring out why our younger population is doing down the route they have the last 25'ish years is something that has yet to be corrected.
You're right that we'll never ban guns in the US, but if we did, I think we'd see a lot less mass casualty events. People will still kill each other, of course, but it moves that breakpoint farther away from the average person's means, and moving that breakpoint means less innocent dead people. Seems fair to me.
Basically, I agree that people are creative, and a person who wants to kill someone (or many people) will find a way to do it. But if you make it harder, people will give up. Doing stuff is hard! Let's make it harder.
Even the the ubiquitous glock can sustain similar rates of fire, although the survivability may be greater.
If the average person is facing someone with any intent to do harm with a modern firearm then there is no power balance.
You can also build an AR-15 with a block of metal, a CNC machine, and plans that are freely available on the Internet. There is no effective means by which you could prevent an AR-15 from ending up in peoples' hands.
I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about.
Presumably, as your idea of self defence is overwhelming firepower, you spend your days campaigning against the ban on automatic weapons?
Prohibitions on such weapons do not reduce the overall violent crime rate, so I don't see why it matters.
> Presumably, as your idea of self defence is overwhelming firepower, you spend your days campaigning against the ban on automatic weapons?
What you imagine I think or do has no bearing on the arguments at hand.
>a block of metal, a CNC machine
Try not to argue in bad faith as a gun owner challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Half of your arguments are "regular men need to defend their houses" and "but black people shoot eachother in the ghetto too". Hint: these are in complete opposition to "Having enough time, money and access to a CNC Machine to make a homemade shitty AR15". Making guns less accessible means less shootings, period.
They are not. Black people have a right to self-defense the same as everyone else. The point is that gun violence in the United States is not uniform or random, but rather connected with specific set of social conditions. Ameliorating those specific social problems would reduce violent crime rates without the need to disarm peaceful civilians.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that if you need to own and know how to operate a CNC mill in order to do a mass shooting, mass shootings are going to decrease. CNC is not "hit print", it's a skill that requires training and development. (Looking at /r/3DPrinting, I can tell you that many people manage to screw that up. CNC is like 3D printing, but about 10x harder. Some may argue that you need some more zeroes on there, actually.)
It is also not necessary for a every person wanting to build a rifle to own a CNC machine.
As it is, it would be both legally and practically infeasible outlaw and confiscate AR-15s.
False. The Virginia Tech shooter killed 32 people with a pair of pistols. It remains the deadliest school shooting in the US, and surpassed as deadliest mass shooting only by Orlando (49 dead, 2016) and Las Vegas (60 dead, 2017).
2015's second-deadliest: pistols and a revolver. He had a rifle but didn't use it (Umpqua College)
2014's deadliest: knives, pistol, car (Isla Vista)
2013's deadliest: shotgun (DC Naval Yard)
Review the list for yourself below, sort by death toll, then go to each shooting's page, which lists the weapons used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...
Really tired of seeing this argument. They're made for killing, period. Fertilizer, box cutter, automobiles all have other uses. Killing is not one of them. For guns, it's in the top 3. And I say this as a gun owner.