I said regulating, not banning.
Oh let me bring you up to speed on official NRA language. They would never ever ever use the word "ban" and any kind of weapon in the same sentence unless its to say "we need to stop any attempt to ban...". But "additional regulation" is a term that allows them to tip their hat to the concept of change up to and including outright banning. They surely know any legislation or ATF action that results in a change in the availability of bump stocks would be somewhere between a ban and laws so draconian that it would in effect ban it from the vast majority of regular citizens. But they arent ever going to release an official statement saying "we want to ban..." even if they were talking about ICBM's.
And anyway the NRA releasing a carefully coded message about "regulating" bump stocks that they know full well wont result in any change hardly addresses my point about the NRA no longer supporting certain kinds of GUN control measures as they had in the distant past when they actually officially were in favor of the BANNING of many kinds of firearms. For example, they supported the National Firearms act of 1934 which outright banned machine guns among other guns and later on supported the Federal Firearms Act. They even were against open carry legislation in the 60's and 70's although primarily because they didn’t want the black panthers being able to legally walk around with rifles (or vibranium I assume). But all that semi-rational common sense stuff stopped in the 80's when the NRA became part and parcel of the gun manufacturing industry and tightened up even more so when mass shootings began to really become an issue shortly after. They found the mass shootings resulted in a spike of gun sales and a spike in gun sales resulted in the gun manufacturers filling the NRA's coffers with cash. So carnage was great for business! And contributed to a cycle that allowed them to get more and more powerful on the dead bodies of first graders.
Of course the real irony is that electing Republicans is BAD for business. But electing democrats might lead to restrictions. So probably the ideal situation for the NRA is lots of Republicans in office AND lots of mass shootings to scare the public into buying lots more guns.
All the way to the bank...
And as for your reply about the car analogy, I can always tell when you run up against an argument that confounds you because you go into lawyer gobbledygook mode and take 7 paragraphs to say pretty much nothing in the hopes that youll make me so dizzy that Ill concede your mistake as a point. Well sorry. I consider resorting to fine print arguing a sign of failure. Guns are tools for killing. Cars are tools for transportation. No dancing around those facts with verbiage.
Never said "exclusively", I said "specifically" as you yourself noted in my quote. So unless its your contention that killing is an incidental result of gun design and they are actually "exclusively" (or even "specifically") designed for something else entirely than the logic stands that guns are about killing. Whether thats killing humans or animals. Killin's killin. Sure you can use them to open a bottle of whiskey or knock your girlfriend out but Im thinking that’s not the primary thing going through the mind of the manufacturer when they are mocking up the next assault rifle.
And "other purposes like self defense" you say? Again, unless by self defense you mean throwing your gun at the mugger and running then Im thinking that’s pretty much the same way of saying "guns are a WEAPON. Guns are DESIGNED to KILL".
Oh and I never said gun manufacturers are making guns more dangerous to use for the owner ("accidental discharge" generally impacts the shooter more than anyone else) but more lethal to use AGAINST a target. Im not sure why you feel so compelled to site wikipedia in order to try to dodge that absolute fact. Guns today are more lethal than guns from 50 years ago (or 200 years ago for that matter Mr. Second Amendment). Cars have gotten faster sure but MUCH safer. The accident stats from the 30's versus the 60's versus today makes that plainly clear. Again no need to bob and weave on this one.
And don’t try to back track out of the analogy by saying oh I don’t support regulation. That wasn’t the point. The point was you insisting that "our current regulations are insufficient" on cars. Well if you dont actually believe that then don’t bring up the point.
And Im amused that my open theorizing on the prospect of banning the AR-15 resulted in you making yet more petty irrelevant pot shots and offering pointless wiki based philosophy citations in response. How bout trying to actually, you know, respond to the actual comment like Yoda did (and most people in discussion do) rather than using everything you see as an opportunity to try to insult and/or vomit your current irrelevant interests on us in the process. Cause it makes you look like incoherent grandstander. At best.
What part of "also" do you not understand?
That still begs the question of 'Why those few?'
I can only assume you ask this question because you want to be able to say after my response that banning one gun leaves the door open to banning any other gun, especially when other guns kill more people (although not in a high profile way like these assault rifles have been). To which my question would be then according to this logic how can we draw a line AT ALL? If you are worried that banning AR-15's will be the camels nose under the tent toward banning pistols and 22's etc. then how can banning grenade launchers and fully automatic weapons etc. not lead to the same thing? Also, why didnt the original assault weapons ban result in an avalanche of bans or other guns as well?
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