@Obi - any semi auto rifle is considered an assault rifle. You said weapons grade. These are civilian and police grade assault rifles, not military grade. Backtrack much?

@Obi - I happen to think the assault weapons ban *should* ne reinstated, but I took offense at your insistence that it was a military grade weapon. Sorry, but you can't backtrack and say you weren't insisting we all accept your definition over the experts when it is obvious to anyone who can read at an 8th grade level you clearly *did* insist it.

Finally, Obi, a point by point of your factual errors and insistence. Will you admit you were wrong about these factual errors? I think not, but you might surprise me.

""Once again, define "military-grade weapon". Most standard-issue military weapons right now are either fully-automatic capable or three-round burst capable. Name *one* weapon widely available to civilians that shares this capability."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle

James Holmes used an M-16..."

First error of fact. He used an semi-automatic AR 15.

"The former is by definition a military weapon, and the latter the version it's derived from."

False. The *original* M16 was called the AR15 initially, but the current AR15 is a variant of *that* weapon, not the other way around. From the history of the M16/AR15 from Wikipedia:

The select-fire AR-15 entered the US military system as the M16 rifle. Colt then marketed the Colt AR-15 as a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle for civilian sales in 1963.

As you can see, the selective fire (original semi/full auto via selector, and modified to include 3-burst in the A2 variant) predates the semi automatic civilian version. The AR15 sold to the public is the variant and, as such, not military grade. I won't argue that it isn't an assault rifle. It is. Bat that wasn't what you were insisting.

"As when, by its own definition, it IS a military-grade weapon."

Again, see above, the civilian AR-15 is the variant, *not* the military AR-15/MA-16A1 or it's later versions. Oh, and right there was where you *insisted* on *your* definition of "military grade" due to your own lack of knowledge and refusal to do research before writing *your* diatribe.

"For all your bluster about my dismissing evidence out of hand, you are the one here dismissing definitions out of hand simply because they do not conform to standards you and gunfighter came up with."

I think it's a bit more than gunfighter and those of us here telling you that you are wrong who has made that definition. In fact *your* definition is the *only* one here *not* backed by experts and governmental authority. So once again you were insisting *we* accept your definition by claiming *ours* was the false one.

And to help clarify the major differences and why the AR-15 is *not* a weapons grade weapon, merely a civilian semi-automatic.

From the same wikipedia article:

Semi-automatic AR-15s for sale to civilians are internally different from the full automatic M-16, although nearly identical in external appearance. The hammer and trigger mechanisms are of a different design. The bolt carrier and internal lower receiver of semi-automatic versions are milled differently, so that the firing mechanisms are not interchangeable. This was done to satisfy United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) requirements that civilian weapons may not be easily convertible to full-automatic. In the late 1970's and early 80's items such as the "Drop In Auto Sear" or "lightning-link," conversion to full automatic is very straightforward (sometimes requiring machining of the lower receiver with use of a lathe and M16 Bolt Carrier Group).[12][13] Such modifications, unless using registered and transferable parts made prior to May 19, 1986, are illegal. (The Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986 has redefined a machinegun to include individual components where a semi-automatic firearm can be converted to full-automatic based on a 1981 ATF ruling on machinegun parts.) Since 1993 The Bolt Carrier Groups used in AR-15 type rifles for civilians have employed additional measures to prevent modification to full auto. Colt AR-15's use a metal alloy wall separating the Fire Control group from the Sear, preventing use of such items.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15

not a military grade weapon... Sorry for the typo.

http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/2013/01/all-you-need-to-know-about-assault-rifles/

Another good source of education on this.

Columbine happened during the last Gun ban, as well 8 other school shootings. Proving that gun bans do not work.

We have actual proof that it didnt work before.

Clear skies.

[I'm a believer in natural rights], fair enough if you’d just like to go and stand in a lions’ gage we’ll see how ‘natural’ your right to life is. Your right to life is derived from people coming together and deciding upon a shared notion of what is right, even the right to life is limited in some places if for example you have murdered someone or are a foetus up to 27 weeks old. The removal of the right to life in these circumstances is again decided by a collective of people. in some countries you have the right to participate in the decision making process about where the line should be drawn, in others you are not permitted to participate; you have no natural right of voting or of representation. Likewise you do not have natural property rights you only need to look at nature to see one species stealing food (property) from another species. Your property rights are granted to you by a collective of people. Again these rights are limited; I do not get to keep all the money I earn, a proportion of it is taken by the same collective that granted my property rights. Sometimes they take my property to invade foreign countries. I have no right to stop them taking my property in order to kill others. They become the arbiter as to how much and when and why to take my property; these may seem unjust but they also protect my property from everyone else who would seek to take my property, they even protect my ideas, inventions and photographs so they are not all bad.

What really hacked me off if when they took my house and my land and built a great big motorway through it. I think I should have shot them all when they turned up at my door. What do you think?

Not content with building a motorway through my land they then tell me I can’t drive faster than 70 mph on it. Just because some crackpot might drive at 100mph outside a school and runs over some kids, they think this justifies limiting my speed. Who gives them the right to make such bizarre laws?

Sometimes I don’t feel as I have any rights, apart from free speech; at least I can say what I want. Except of course, I’m not allowed to threaten anybody as that would violate their right to a peaceful life.

My point is that society creates our rights and they also have the right to limit our rights. I agree with you that they should only do the limiting bit sparingly, but they have to decide the limits, not me as an individual. As an individual I might want to own guns, drive at 100mph, kill foetuses at 37 weeks, force a motorway to be built around my farm, steal intellectual property, threaten a jihad if people depict the Justin Bieber in a state of undress etc, etc, but just because I want to do them doesn’t give me a right, natural or otherwise, to do them.

I kind of expect other members of my society not to start killing people if animal rights are violated, Scottish independence is or isn’t granted, or gun ownership is limited. We might not like societies decisions, but in the absence of any other system the rule of law is all we have and we shouldn’t think we can pick and choose the laws we wish to obey or threaten an uprising if our views run counter to 99/5% of the population.

Maniac, 20 kids in a classroom I can do the damage with a lot of different guns if that was my intention.

Not sure what your point is Stressed - are you saying "try to take my guns and i'll kill people" or are you saying "i can kill lots of people with a magnum 45, so don't bother trying to limit my AK-47" - I'm not making a point here, i generally don't know which way to take your last comment.

The 2nd part was what I was implying, that the choice of the gun in THAT situation. One door in, one door out.

Those kids had no chance, regardless of the weapon Adam brought into the room.

*facepalm*

obiwan, once again you show your complete ignorance of guns. The AR-15 was the name of the rifle when Eugene Stoner was developing it. When it was adopted by the US Military, it became the M16 and its subsequent variants (M16A2, M16A3, and the current M16A4 and M4 Carbine). Nowadays, the "AR-15" designation is a generalized label given to all weapons derived from Stoner's basic design. It is also (incorrectly) used as a label for the civilian-legal variants of the weapon. It DOES NOT mean that civilian variants of the weapon are equal in capability to their military cousins. They LOOK visually identical, except for the very significant difference in the fire selection switch. Good luck finding a civilian AR-15 with "Full" or "Burst" options for the fire selection switch.

As a side note, I think that the AR-15 family are a bunch of completely shitty firearms with an inherently flawed design that should have never made it out of the blueprint stage, much less adopted. The wonders of mixing politics with the military.
___________

Also as a side note, the Columbine shooters did their shooting when the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect. Didn't stop them, now did it? The Virginia Tech shooter had two completely legal handguns for his rampage. So-called "Gun-Free Zones" get more people killed than legal firearms carried by licensed individuals.

Unfortunately you cannot legislate away a cancer in a society and you can't just hope that things will get better..
Give an idiot a gun - somebody sometime will get cut or stabbed
Give an idiot a box of match - something will get set on fire
Give an idiot a fast food joint - someones gonna get real fat
Give an idiot an assault rifle - someones gonna get shot
Too many idiots have guns.
Too many TV heroes getting famous for killing people with guns
Too many idiots defending the Constitution rather than defending the real freedom to venture outside your house without the fear of becoming a victim of gun-related crime
Too many apologists for mass murderers
Before you deserve better you have to believe that things can be better, you have to have faith in human nature, that good can triumph over evil.
If you really believe that more gun ownership is better than less you have no hope, somebody has to have the guts to stand up and say no more.
No more heroes on TV that kill bad guys for pleasure
No more childrens computer games that encourage and promote and glorify extreme violence
No more politicians that encourage hatred

to people of other creeds, colours and religions.
No more heroes that died fighting but lived because they didn't have to fight
You won't get more unless you have the courage to say
NO MORE GUNS .......

Give an idiot a gun - somebody sometime will get cut or stabbed
(of course this should read 'Give an idiot a knife......'
.....my bad

"Unfortunately you cannot legislate away a cancer in a society"

So why are you people trying to legislate guns?

"Give an idiot an assault rifle - someones gonna get shot"

You are 100 times more likely to die of medical malpractice than be shot by a so-called "assault rifle"

"Too many idiots have guns."

Too many idiots trying to legislate guns without knowing anything about them. I will bet anyone any amount of money that Barack Obama has never handled any of the things he has talked about banning.

"Too many apologists for mass murderers"

Too many people blaming an inanimate object for the actions of an animate person.

"If you really believe that more gun ownership is better than less you have no hope"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia

"Too many idiots defending the Constitution rather than defending the real freedom to venture outside your house without the fear of becoming a victim of gun-related crime"

Your odds of being involved in a mass shooting are 1 in 3 million.

My county in Tennessee..

Population 12000
Registered Guns= 64000
Estimated guns= well over 120000
Gun crimes in past 0 years= 4 All were home invasions gone bad for invader.
Rapes= none
Breaking And entering= none, heck, people hardly lock their doors.

And I am 100% sure that there are LOTS of AKs and Ars here.

Point is, these people manage very easily to keep a LOT of guns, and manage to not go around kililng each other.

Stressed - hello from Iowa, where we have some of the most lax concealed-carry laws in the nation and, according to ClearSkies' statistics, the lowest murder rate in the country.

Last murder I can remember in our county, the guy strangled his wife, then put her in her car in the garage and left the car running so it looked like she gassed herself. Maybe we should ban garages, cuz if you give an idiot a garage he'll strangle his wife....

fLEM, I think if we look at the 'where' and the 'who' is doing most of the murders withguns in this country, I think we would find lots of Criminal on Crimnal homicides, and in bigger cities.

Isaw Lous on the top of the list, but if you took out New Orelans and Baton Rouge, things got really low, really fast. Dont think the cajuns are the ones doing all the killing there.

I think the stereotypes our European and Los Angelean friends have would be the opposite though....I suspect they think all the shooting is being done by cowboys and rednecks and hillbillies....

I know of one case, in my county, some womans ex husband would get drunk, come to her house she shared with her nuw husband, and just go off on them, coming in the house, starting shit.

Finally, new husband says "comein my house one more time, and it will be a 1 way trip"

Ex hubby got drunk, came on over, busted into the house to start shit, and ended up in a body bag for his troubles.

I have sat at a diner in my small town, with about 20 people inside.and half had side arms.

Did not bother me or anyone else

"I have sat at a diner in my small town, with about 20 people inside.and half had side arms."
I have to ask the question "why are 'normal' folk going to their local diner armed?"
You think that is the sign of normality, popping out for a burger with a gun
"Did not bother me or anyone else"
It didn't bother you, what does that tell you that a large number of people go down their local diner armed and nobody bats an eyelid.
Wake up and smell the capafrappacino

Maniac: As I said we're approaching the issue from very different philosophical standpoints. This will lead us to draw different conclusions from the exact same circumstances. And, as I've said numerous times before, I'm not here to debate the philosophical points of this issue. I'm here to highlight how very little the gun control laws that are feasible to enact will do to solve the problem.

I suppose I haven't yet elaborated on WHY I'm avoiding philosophical debate;

There cannot be rational discourse and debate where there is no common ground. I was already aware we shared dissimilar philosophical approaches to the issue, as is demonstrated by so many different arguments being thrown back and forth in the thread at this time. Fundamentally, the primary difference between pro-gun-rights and pro-gun-control is a philosophical difference with respects to the rights of man and how those rights are awarded and respected.

That is why I attempted to make a purely factual argument on the effectiveness and utility of gun control laws within the current situation, which is why I established my three premises in the formal logical argument I made. I believe all reasonable parties can agree that something which does not achieve its aims is pointless, pointless laws are to be avoided, and that passing a complete gun ban is made impossible by the second amendment.

Assuming that all reasonable parties would agree on those three points, I then went on to make an argument of pure fact, devoid of philosophical outlook; I presented the argument that gun control laws short of a complete ban (premise #3) have little to no effect (premise #1) therefore should not be implemented (premise #2). In logical form I cannot see any flaws with that reasoning, and as of yet nobody has countered that argument.

There can and will be no resolution to your philosophical disputes, gentlemen. Of that I can assure you. Common ground must first be established (This is what premises do in a logical argument) and from a philosophical perspective the two sides do not share a common base of premises. The debate can therefore be conducted in a much more civil manner if we restrict ourselves to factual (physical) instead of philosophical (metaphysical) points of contention.

@ NigeeBaby

135 years ago, it would be abnormal to walk into a public establishment and NOT see the place armed to the teeth. What has changed since then? Oh yeah the number of people carrying and the crime rate.

Maniac,

In fairness, that's not much of a critique of natural rights. People who believe in the natural right to life never did believe it meant there was a right that was enforceable against nature, or that the right to life was being somehow violated if you were killed by lightning or eaten by a lion.

Natural rights only apply against moral creatures -- humans. The belief in a natural right to life means that, by the very nature of things, it is morally wrong for somebody to kill another.

So that's not to say you'll accept that, and as CS said, there is probably no point debating such philosphical disagreements (the position you're arguing, that right and wrong are just determined by agreement, is some mix of legal positivism and moral relativism, either of which will be opposed to natural rights). But at least don't mischaracterize the position you're arguing against. In effect, the position you're responding to isn't natural rights at all.

Semck - I think we are a lot closer than you think. You correctly say the right to life are for moral beings and my morals may be different to yours. The right to life for example is extended to just about all foetuses in Ireland because their population have agree that it should be, the right to life extends to all murders in the UK again because people have decided it. In the USA things are different because their population want them to be different.

My point is the right to life, the right to bear arms and the right to free speech are decided by and should be decided by the population. Anybody who thinks their moral code should superceed that of others and then try to justify it by saying the rights they believe they have are 'natural' or god given are unfortuneately wrong. What those people are arguing is that they are correct and they can ignore the rule of law when it suits them. People who ignore he rle of law can properly be described as tyrants, it is ironic that such tyrants then seek to suggest that such action is necessary to prevent tyranny.

No Maniac, that is not quite what we are saying, and unfortunately for the purposes of discourse we instead feel that YOU are wrong in that an arbitrary authority- in this case government- can define what is or is not a person's rights, and it's amusing to us that such people cling to the belief this is true when so often throughout history it has been demonstrated that said authorities have many times gotten the issue of human rights WRONG (just look at any incarnation of the civil rights movements for examples- there was a time the people decided that blacks have no right to personal liberty and could isntead be treated as if property. There was a time- and in some cultures that time is 'today'- people believed that women should NOT have the right to free speech.) During those times, as the population and government enforced such perspectives, were they correct?

As has been stated, we will not see eye-to-eye on this issue, and therefore it should be shelved for the purposes of civil debate. Instead we can stick to the many different issues rooted in pure fact and logic that such an issue presents us, that is, what courses of action are possible, which courses of action are feasible, and which courses of action would be effective.

Now that we have expressly, explicitly stated we find no common ground on the philosophical aspects of the issue, it is my hope that such facets of the discussion can finally be put to rest. We must, as the saying goes, agree to disagree, for there will never be agreement between us on that issue.

There are more productive angles to be explored, dissected, analyzed and discussed that may lead to greater insight on the issue at hand. If we can restrict the debate to points of factual merit instead of philosophical perspective, hopefully we may continue to do just that.

So I again restate my still as of yet unchallenged logical argument to the thread;

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Premises;
1) There is little to no point to passing laws that have little to no effect
2) It would be improper to make a modification to a system that has no point
3) A blanket ban on guns is not possible within the current circumstances (2nd Amendment)

Argument:
Gun control laws (where a blanket ban is impossible) have little to no effect on incidence of firearms-related homicide.
Supporting Evidence:
http://i.imgur.com/CRHlUje.jpg

Therefore;

Y) It would be improper to pass further gun control laws.

Is there disagreement on the premises, or a rebuttal of the argument?