Jacinda Ardern and her government are not fucking around:
“In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country,” said Ardern.
The ban on the sale of the weapons came into effect at 3pm on Thursday – the time of the press conference announcing the ban – with the prime minister warning that “all sales should now cease” of the weapons.
Ardern also directed officials to develop a gun buyback scheme for those who already own such weapons. She said “fair and reasonable compensation” would be paid.
The reason that the ban had immediate effect was to avoid stockpiling.
2,288 days have passed since Sandy Hook.
A Ghost To Most
It’s easy when gun ownership is a privilege, not a right. Their example, while laudable, is not applicable to America.
rikyrah
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Bravo to this leadership.
Sab
I know we had a thread a couple of days ago. I haven’t fired a gun since I was 12, and I am 65 now. From my limited understanding of hunting if you shoot a deer with a semi-automatic you get pulverized deermeat which isn’t all that edible. So you are just killing it for fun.
Is this an accurate description.
oldster
@A Ghost To Most:
Their example is *directly* applicable to America, in which gun ownership is a qualified right, not an unqualified right.
Even Scalia agreed that there is broad scope for detailed regulation with respect to the type of guns permitted in civilian hands.
No nukes, no rocket-launchers – that’s already the law. No semi-automatics is just a sensible extension of it.
And entirely compatible with the right-wing court’s reading of the Constitution.
Raven
@Sab: Not if you only fire one round. You don’t HAVE to fire multiple rounds with a semi-automatic.
David Evans
@A Ghost To Most: That right dates from the era of single-shot rifles (which, I think, will still be allowed in NZ). When do you decide things have changed?
schrodingers_cat
Failed democracy? One party has hijacked our democracy and imposed the will of the minority on the rest of us.
Gin & Tonic
@A Ghost To Most: I thought being a member of a militia was a right.
Snarki, child of Loki
To make this plan work in Amerika, needz more “cold dead hands” to take the guns out of.
So, multiple upsides.
Villago Delenda Est
That’s the way to do it. Money for nothin’, and your chicks for free.
Villago Delenda Est
@A Ghost To Most: This is perfectly OK with flintlocks, and the militia needs to be “well-regulated”, which means there’s an NCO with a clipboard in your face inspecting your firearm on drill weekend, which is mandatory if you want to be in the militia with a firearm. Miss one drill, you’re out, we don’t care if your kid was sick, you need a permission slip to miss drill, you’ve got a fucking duty to perform.
Amir Khalid
@David Evans:
Actually, I think that right predates rifles. When the Second Amendment was enacted, muzzle-loading muskets and pistols were the common firearms of the day.
Kay
Smart. She’ll be spared the forced crash course in weaponry gun hobbyists subject the rest of us to because she identified the weapons.
I still don’t know why I have to be a part of their hobby. My hobby is gardening. When they pull or modify an insecticide or herbicide I know I personally could continue to use it with little or no damage to the public because it’s just me- one application- but I also know everything isn’t about me personally and the relative ease of my hobby. There’s an aggregate interest and an aggregate price to be paid. I don’t force other people to pay it.
Gun owners really couldn’t possibly adjust to reasonable regulations? That’s impossible? Bullshit. They’d be fine. They’d collect different guns, pay for licenses, whatever- the same constraints every other hobby operates under. Then we could all go back to not giving a shit what they do.
Villago Delenda Est
@Raven: They buy these weapons for the rock and roll after market option.
Sab
@Raven: So why have a semi-automatic if you only intend to fire one round? Aren’t there better guns for that?
Uncle Cosmo
@Sab: @Raven: Good point. There’s nothing inherently more destructive or dangerous about a single bullet delivered from a semi-automatic than one from a single-shot weapon – much depends on the kinetic energy of the bullet (i.e., speed at impact) & its behavior once it hits its target (is it designed to spread or tumble?). The problem with semi-automatics – particularly ones designed for minimal recoil like the AR-15 – is that the shooter can deliver a round as fast as s/he can pull the trigger (pewpewpewpew! etc.) Even a weapon with a multiple-round magazine doesn’t represent the same level of threat, so long as it requires manual action (e.g., a hand-operated bolt) to chamber the next round. (Edited to fix T’ai-Po.)
Sab
I am sixty-five years old. My grandchildren don’t know but I grew up in an America with gun regulation. When I was in high school we worried about the guys with switchblades. And we had a Second Amendment then.
This reality of every disgruntled adolescent with a semi-automatic is not normal.
Raven
@Villago Delenda Est: I know that.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
Isn’t it expensive to rock and roll with an AR-15 modded for full auto? I’ve never bought ammo in my life, but emptying a big magazine can’t be cheap.
Betty Cracker
@Kay:
Gun pedantry in the context of the latest massacre makes me so fucking stabby, but we’ll be subjected to it regardless, even if Ardern escapes. There’s always a longing to talk about The Precious.
PS: Right after Bush II got reelected, some friends of ours (a couple with two young children) decided America was done and left for New Zealand. They encouraged us to do the same, and we seriously considered it but decided we couldn’t leave our extended families behind. It’s times like these (and Nov. 2016) I wish we had.
Raven
@Sab: I’m not defending it I’m just saying you don’t have to fire more than one round so the deer hunting example doesn’t hold.
trollhattan
@Sab:
Yes. Traditional deer rifles are bolt action and more accurate.
For the record, JFK was murdered using a mail-order bolt-action rifle. Plenty of firepower.
David Evans
@Amir Khalid: True. I didn’t bother to look it up.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: I thought my right to live was a right.
@Villago Delenda Est: This. I’ve got a clipboard and some experience motivating individuals. I’ll see everyone at 0600.
Raven
@trollhattan: The 30-30 Winchester lever action was a traditional deer rifle for ages.
Chyron HR
@A Ghost To Most:
“But I have a RIGHT to kill as many kindergartners as possible before the cops arrive!!”
For now, yes.
dlwchico
Meanwhile, in America…. https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/2019/03/20/ista-active-shooter-drills-went-too-far-hurt-participants/3230613002/
sab
@Amir Khalid: These jerks have nothing else to live for. They work to have the money to buy ammo..
I have a cousin who is a gun nut. He is a primary school teacher. It works for him.
I have a nephew who is a gun nut. His wife has issues with depression. They have a kid. He thinks it is okay to have a gun in the house under lock and key. Like she doesn’ t know where the key is.
Moron.
trollhattan
@sab:
That’s profoundly disturbing. I hope they navigate through for the kid’s sake.
Leto
@Uncle Cosmo: Caveat to that is that the AR-15’s round is designed to tumble through soft tissue. When the round penetrates, it starts to flip end over end, causing more damage internally. It’s why you have a small entry wound, then an exit wound the size of a golf ball to an orange. It’s a battlefield weapon. It’s not meant to be used on wildlife. It’s meant to kill on the battlefield. High volume of fire with lethal results. It should have never made it to the civilian market.
Joe Falco
I hope we’ll elect someone as president that will take the chance to do something as bold as what NZ has done. And hopefully not when it takes another Christchurch or something similarly horrible for action to occur. This is truly a hellscape of a nation that such events happen in our part of the world and there is not anything done to change the situation. All because of a minority that would see us drown in blood before any perceived “right” of theirs is curbed in any way. F’ckin Moloch worshippers.
But her emails!!!
Honestly, I want the whole well regulated militia back in force. Sure, you can own whatever and however many guns you want, but you get PT’d until you puke multiple times per year while carrying your entire arsenal on your person.
trollhattan
@Leto:
The Florida trauma surgeons who operated on Parkland victims made this point, being accustomed to pistol wounds. They were appalled at the amount of damage.
Gravenstone
@dlwchico: The bone stupidity described in that drill is gobsmacking.
Leto
@trollhattan: We (USAF) have been taught that in every single weapons class. Doesn’t matter how many times you go through the class, the weapons capabilities/limitations are drilled into you. I’ve also had the unfortunate experience of seeing/dealing with the results of our weapons first hand. Insanity. Lunacy.
Eunicecycle
@dlwchico: My God, who decided that was appropriate? And now you have to pass a law to say teachers shouldn’t be shot with pellets during active shooter training? Is there no common sense any more?
Xavier Onassis
Exactly what we should do here. Ban semiautomatic weapons and then have the government offer enough to current owners to price everyone else out of the market. #MMT.
Sherparick
@A Ghost To Most: Also, New Zealand is a parliamentary democracy, with the Executive, the Prime Minister, directly accountable to the legislature and her party holds a majority in Parliament. Once PM Arcinda and her party concurred on taking action, all they had to do is draft the bill and have NZ Parliament vote on it and it becomes law with the Royal Assent (done for Elizabeth II by her Viceroy, the Governor General, Dame Patsy Reddy).
If we ever get around to rewriting the Constitution (and boy what a kettle of vicious snakes that would be) the ideal would be to change our Government to a parliamentary democracy.
gvg
@Joe Falco: It will take more that a leader President. It will take both houses of Congress, plus the supream court and then actually for the public to remain ok with it and not reacting an electing more gun nuts to undo it and make the “leaders” in Congress lose reelection. In other words most people have to be convinced and stay convinced for years.
It appalls me how healthcare reform sparked such a backlash that legislators that did the right thing lost reelections. It should have been the other way around, democrats should have had an advantage after ACA.
It’s actually dangerous to have a system where one leader can make profound changes. I do actually prefer a consensus based policy even though it’s frustrating too. Trump has initially done less than I feared because he doesn’t actually have total control. On the other hand he is stupider than I realized was possible and is screwing up the world economics and we will pay.
Sab
@trollhattan: Me too. Family thinks I am the nut.
Ohio Mom
@Sherparick: “If we ever get around to rewriting the Constitution…” I’m betting you and I and everyone else here will like the results a lot less than the current set-up.
The Vast Ring-Wing Conspiracy is primed and ready to rewrite it. It’s one of their dreams. Be careful what you wish for.
sherparick
@Sherparick: The problem with having a new Constitutional Convention was that the first was a one off under the most fortunate circumstances. An elite of group of white men, mostly wealthy and all of them relatively well off compared with most of the other 3 million inhabitants of the former British colonies of North America wrote it. They had just come through a 20 year crucible of political controversy, revolution, and war and as a result to have a remarkable consensus of views, wrote document. Those who would have wanted something more reactionary (e.g. a Monarchy and permanent aristocracy), having lost the Revolutionary War, did not have vote. The group that did essentially foisted it on the country through a nonviolent coup, getting around the state legislatures where opposition to the document was most intense. Slavery was not just a Southern thing in 1787 and treating Blacks and Indians and women like shit was really in dispute, so all sorts of noble rights and provisions (like the prohibition on religious test for office) were put in the document. We obviously live in a different time and the Christianist and plutocratic minority have a little list of things they would put in a Constitution with the idea of restoring those 1787 conditions and they would be very much a part of a new Constitutional Convention.
PaulWartenberg
If we had to live in a world where assault weapons that have no place in regular society were banned or a world where our schools are being used for target practice, I will ban assault weapons every time.
Other nations keep proving that reducing the number of guns available to the population reduces gun violence (and better still, suicides). We cant, because the fcking wingnuts think the Second Amendment is a License to Kill.
snoey
@Betty Cracker:You need at least one person who does know magazine/clip etc. to write laws that work. New Zealand implemented a badly written and mostly useless “assault weapons” ban some time ago. This is much better.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker:
If both my parents had been deceased in 2004, I’d have left. But my mom played the “this will just kill your daddy” card, so I stayed, and now I’m basically trapped.
Kay
@dlwchico:
The “security” industry that has grown up around our lack of weapons regulation is riddled with scammers, grifters and frauds.
Schools are terrified they will be blamed for a shooting, there is government funding available to pay the scammers, grifters and frauds, so they’re flocking to start companies and cash in. We had one fellow here who claimed to be a combat veteran, that was why the city hired him to do “active shooter” drills, and one sharp newspaper reporter sensed he was a bullshitter checked out his “combat veteran” claim. His whole biography was invented.
It’s so sad. The gun nuts who make “active shooter drills” necessary are the SAME gun nuts who are cashing in on “security training”.
Kay
@dlwchico:
I mean, if we MUST do active shooter drills, and I don’t know that anyone has shown they make a bit of difference, but if we MUST pretend to be “doing something” then just use the local police. They all get the training and we’re already paying them. Have them come do it. The last thing we need in this country is another bullshit “industry” that is paid out of public school funding that could be going to something worthwhile, like, you know, STUDENTS.
You’ll see more and more of these scams as state and federal funding increases. It’s a whole new “sector” – it’s like a damn jobs program for gun nuts.
Just pay the police overtime. It’s cheaper and as “effective” as anything else.
daveNYC
Minor point: This isn’t a ban. It’s moving semi-auto rifles from Class A (easy enough to get a license for) to Class E (very not easy to get a license for). Nothing in there would run afoul of the second amendment, and the only reason the US can’t do something similar is the political pressure of the NRA and their ilk.
Good job New Zealand.
Kay
@dlwchico:
The Trump Administration, true to their mission as corrupt incompetents and low quality hires, are pouring federal funding into this scam sector WHILE cutting funding for everything that makes a school worthwhile to students.
They’ll be VERY good at “lockdowns”, our students, but they won’t get any after school programs.
It’s a 5 billion dollar jobs program for unemployed (and formerly unemployable) gun nuts.
Kay
And you can’t really blame schools for going the “security” route. School shootings are rare, but all you need is one. The price for error is enormous– nearly unimaginable.
The first thing anyone will ask the superintendent is “what did you do to prevent this?” and he or she better be able to point to “security consultants” or Jake Tapper will be outraged! They succeeded in shifting the responsibility FROM gun nuts TO schools. No one even suggests regulating the weapons or the gun nuts anymore- now it’s “What could the school have done to prevent this?”
Uncle Cosmo
@Leto: Absolutely, couldn’t have said it better.
FWIW, fuound this in the M-16 article in Wikipedia:
(emphasis added)
Tumbling, fragmentation, mir ist’s egal – obscene no matter how you parse it.
chopper
@Leto:
exactly. i guess hunting with an AR-15 makes sense if you like your meat pre-shredded?
zhena gogolia
@Villago Delenda Est:
Right!!!!!
chopper
@trollhattan:
i’ve noticed when the news comes out of a mass shooting i can guess pretty well if an AR-15-type weapon was used when looking at the casualty statistics. the way the bullets wreck the human body leads to a much lower survival rate for those shot. when someone shoots up a place with a 9mm, the chances of people surviving with injuries is noticeably higher.
this is of course by design. these rifles were designed to shred human bodies.
Brachiator
@A Ghost To Most:
Maybe. Even so, I applaud what New Zealand is doing.
I also enjoy the fact that all the dreary comments forthcoming from gun nuts have been rendered null and void.
Uncle Cosmo
@Leto: I meant to add that the use of expanding (“dum dum”) bullets in warfare has been prohibited for 120 years (Hague Convention, 1899) but no international convention prohibits their use for hunting or in law enforcement. It looks to me like the 5.56mm rounds are not explicitly designed to “expand or flatten easily in the human body” & so slip past the ban – but hey, if they do so by chance, tant mieux, nyet? (sarcasm)
Kay
I do too, except I don’t think it was a “narrative” and I think political media vehemently denying it to protect their own asses distracts us from the fact that OUR BASE, the Dem base, has some issues with women in positions of power.
We have to admit it to grapple with it. Not political reporters- forget them- WE in the Democratic Party have to admit that our base has some issues. Did the NYTimes et al contribute to it? Yes. Stipulated. They’re horrible. But why was OUR BASE so vulnerable to it?
We went thru this with Obama. Hell, I had the Dem county chair in ’08 tell me Obama would lose because he was black. He said white Democrats would not vote for a black guy. We had open discussions about it. But we haven’t had this discussion about women yet, and we need to.
Brachiator
@Sherparick:
I’m not seeing this as a magical ideal. With parliamentary systems you also get coalition governments held hostage by lunatic fringe parties or unstable governments that cannot come together or which quickly collapse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
It only took them two days to enact this?
C’mon, they didn’t even *try* thoughts and prayers.
A Ghost To Most
@Brachiator: So do I, but this ain’t NZ. The Second Amendment complicates it. Your reading and mine differ from many Americans, and the Supreme Court.
The casual way people dismiss hunters insures that the other side will remain hardened to compromise.
People stomping their feet, and demanding their way regardless, is no more attractive in Democrats than Republicans.
Uncle Cosmo
@chopper:
But not necessarily to kill. The body of a dead enemy combatant sits on the battlefield until the graves-registration unit can get to it, identify & remove it for burial; meanwhile reinforcements are called to the front lines. But a serious wound invokes a whole logistics train of transport & medical personnel & facilities to get that combatant back to where s/he can be treated – which is a bigger hit on the enemy’s operational effectiveness.
IIRC when the US had an offensive chemical & biological warfare program (pre-1969), there was a preference for incapacitating agents over lethal ones, the theory being it was less of a problem to defeat an enemy where everyone’s really sick than one where some are dead but the remainder are fighting back unimpaired. (Also more humane, but I’m not sure that figured into it.) One agent in particular (nope, not naming names) produced a nasty flu-like illness that could kill some with compromised or immature immune systems but generally just made healthy soldier types wish they were dead.
catclub
@Joe Falco:
I think you will be waiting until we have a parliamentary system, then. Ours is designed for gridlock, unless EVERYONE agrees
on change.
Roger Moore
@daveNYC:
I’m not sure this is a minor point. I’ve made a similar point myself. Rather than banning categories of weapons completely, we just need to tighten the restrictions on them so somebody needs to meet some reasonably stringent standards to get them. For example, the US doesn’t ban fully automatic weapons, but we place enough restrictions on owning them that even most gun nuts aren’t willing to jump through all the hoops necessary to get one. I would place much stricter requirements for any semi-automatic weapon with a removable magazine, and at least somewhat stricter requirements for pistols than for long guns.
I would also require licensing for each weapon, with much stricter requirements for collectors’ licenses that allow someone to own more than a handful of guns. There’s a practical reason to want a weapon for hunting or self defense. There’s a practical reason to want a couple of different weapons for different purposes. There’s little need (though often a lot of desire) for someone to own more than a handful of guns. Buying for the purpose of collecting should be allowed, but it should require very tight scrutiny to ensure the “collector” isn’t diverting guns onto the black market.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: As long as human beings exist, no system will be infallible.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
I continue to hear from non-political-junkies how excited they are about Beto. I can only ascribe it to either sexism or (something I feel myself) the panicky fear that no woman can beat Trump, and WE HAVE TO BEAT TRUMP.
A Ghost To Most
As for ammo, this obsession with semi-auto rifles is misplaced . Focus on weapons that fire high-speed ammo, take large magazines, or are easily convertible to automatic fire. Sound like you you know what you are talking about.
trollhattan
Ca Leg reintroducing a bill Jerry vetoed to require any presidential candidate to file tax returns in order to appear on the ballot. Gav has yet to weigh in.
Suspect it will instantly be appealed in federal court if it does go through but if it passes and is signed, not just Trumpers will be howling, if you catch my drift.
Mike in DC
@Amir Khalid: 1000 rounds costs about 200 bucks. 20 cents a round. Kinda pricey if you’re popping off 300 rounds at the range every week.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
When are we going to require some damn liability insurance? (Half past never, I know, but it needs to be both a talking and a campaign point.)
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
Beto doesn’t really do anything for me- I don’t dislike him but I don’t get the huge attraction. I think he’s good to have in as far as geographic diversity- Texas is huge and it’s a border state so it’s good to have both Texas and California represented.
But I’m hearing the same as you. Female is too risky, which is a legit concern in my opinion and should be discussed rationally, as a practical reality. IN the Democratic Party.
It’s not our fault but it is our problem- women, I mean. That it’s unfair doesn’t mean it goes away.
A Ghost To Most
@Raven: Older lever action Marlin for me, please.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@A Ghost To Most: “The casual way people dismiss hunters insures that the other side will remain hardened to compromise.”
Bull fucking shit. I’m a hunter. Everybody in my goddamned family hunts, and has for generations. The “other side” isn’t hunters, and the resistance to gun regulation has nothing to do with hunters’ hurt feelings. It has everything to do with racist incels stockpiling weapons for their fantasy race war and substitute penis collections. The idea that the NRA represents hunting culture has been bullshit for years, and blaming “people” for dismissing hunters is a red herring. From any remotely sane perspective, the sentence would read:
“The casual way people dismiss dead children insures that the other side will remain hardened to compromise.”
A Ghost To Most
@Mike in DC: Yea, At least my musket is relatively cheap to shoot. I can’t imagine dropping that much to shoot, even if you are reloading. Ammosexuals.
dlw32
@Amir Khalid: Just for the record, not that it should prevent us from passing laws, but there were rifles before the 2nd Ammendment. The Pennsylvania Long Rifle was around during the French and Indian War as one example.
A Ghost To Most
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
As I said. Make the distinction between hunting weapons and people killers, and you may be able to move minds. Act like an uncompromising asshole, and you move nothing.
For the record, I haven’t shot at anything but targets for 45 years.
Joe Falco
I don’t know what bold actions a president can take that can at least push the situation in a better direction. And yes, I’d want whatever is done to be done in such a way that it is practically set in stone i.e. full support from all three branches of government with popular support. It is only my wish that, concerning the upcoming presidential race, that we elect a president that will use every legal avenue available to them to pursue gun control legislation that will prevent the kinds of tragedies that seem to happen on a regular basis in this country alone.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
right.
Gex
@A Ghost To Most: Not necessarily, according to Scalia’s take in Heller.
A Ghost To Most
@dlw32: They were hunting and guerrilla arms. Smooth bores were the rule for armies . No need for real accuracy, given the tactics.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
All discussions of “gun control” in this country seem to ignore black people.
The plain fact is that I am armed BECAUSE the neo-Confederate “conservative” sonsabitches are armed and we have plenty– PLENTY– of historical evidence that they are not above political violence against people of color.
So… yeah. Dylann Roof, Robert Gregory Powers, Gregory Bush and plenty of others tell me that I am NOT giving up my guns. You get those white men to give up theirs and we can talk about mine, dig?
A Ghost To Most
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: I’m not giving up my guns, either. I grew up with the worst of these racist assholes. I know what they are capable of. I also know what gutless cowards most of them are.
Royston Vasey
@Sherparick: Like the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, the New Zealand Parliament is also a unicameral body, meaning there is only one chamber i.e. no senate/upper house.
RV in NZ
A Ghost To Most
@Gex:
Heller spoke to the right to have a gun in your home, I believe. I don’t recall it referring to hunting.
Everybody in the east should thank hunters, so you aren’t up to your asses in whitetail deer. Or reintroduce wolves and mountain lions
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Or to be more concrete about it, look at what’s happening with Brexit right now.
KrakenJack
@David Evans: Muzzle loaders, actually. That would be a *real* originalist interpretation.
Kathleen
@Gravenstone: Well it is Indyklanna after all. I hope those teachers sue.
A Ghost To Most
@David Evans: What matters is what the Supremes say now. Originalism is more right-wingnut bullshit, like religion.
Schmancy
@sherparick:
If we had a Constitutional Convention the Kochs and their ilk would line up trucks with pallets of cash and buy as many votes as they needed to create a New Business Utopia. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime corruption lottery where 2/3 of the participants could win.
DHD
@Sherparick: I realize this is pedantic, but Labour doesn’t actually have a majority in the NZ parliament. And as far as I can tell the semi-auto ban that has been put into effect is an executive action attached to some proposed legislation that hasn’t been introduced yet. That said, when they put it to a vote, it would likely be near-unanimous as at least two major opposition parties are on record supporting it. And people had started willingly surrendering their assault rifles even before anything was announced!
This sort of thing is common in countries with a sane political culture, where corporations aren’t allowed to pay off a billion trolls and whataboutists to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about things that will obviously save lives and inconvenience approximately noobody.
Constitutional considerations are secondary … being a parliamentary democracy hasn’t prevented the absolute sh*tshow that is Brexit, for instance :)
Leto
@A Ghost To Most: So far there have been zero mass killings utilizing white tail deer. Fuck hunters. Give me more deer, mt lions, and wolves.
A Ghost To Most
@Leto: Never hit a whitetail with a car? Every person in my family (me too) has hit at least one. The death toll by whitetail is non-zero every.year.
Lots of people hate cyclists. Should we ban them? I’d like to ban jacked-up coal-rollers and Texans from CO. People bitch about my 4×4 and my Prius. Different strokes.
chopper
@A Ghost To Most:
i really want to thank hunters for all the lead they put into our environment.
WaterGirl
@A Ghost To Most: Not to criticize, but this comment seems kind of tone deaf when you are talking about someone who is still recovering from a terrible accident on a motorcycle less than 6 months ago.
Citizen Alan
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Do you seriously think that, as a black man, you could defend yourself in a gunfight and not be prosecuted for your role in it even in a Stand Your Ground state? Ever heard of Philandro Castle?
raven
@WaterGirl: Leto can deal with it.
WaterGirl
@raven: I know he can; it just seemed tone deaf and it was jarring to me, and I wanted to say so.
stan
@A Ghost To Most: “gun ownership is a privilege, not a right”
The founders may have had different ideas about that. Members of the militia (legally ow the various State National Guards) have the right to keep weapons. No such right exists for anyone else.
sm*t cl*de
@Sherparick:
Fiqsed for the sake of pedantry.
sm*t cl*de
@DHD:
The law stayed the same, but the governing coalition made an Order-in-Council changing the operational details… rather than needing an “A”-class firearms license to own the weapons in question, now you need an “E”-class license.
“Don’t waste your time applying for one”, was the accompanying advice.
Villago Delenda Est
@stan: And the weapons they’re issued are kept locked up in an arms room when they’re not on drill weekends engaged in field training exercises or close arms drills.
They don’t get to take them home with them except under extraordinary circumstances.
J R in WV
@Sab:
No, semi-automatic rifles can fire traditional deer hunting cartridges, and you don’t need to fire the whole magazine load at a single deer.
I’ve been gifted with many deer shot with semi-automatic rifles, none of them have been ruined because of the firing style of the rifles. One only had 3 quarters to process, I assume neighbor shot the deer in the missing quarter. Still got a freezer full of ground venison, chops, etc.
TomatoQueen
@Leto: Every suburban gardener in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic who has surveyed their azaleas and boxwoods of a spring morning would like to thank hunters for the fine job they’re doing on the white-tailed deer, otherwise known as rats with hooves. Moar wolves and mountain lions indeed.