Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

While in office President Clinton banned the sale or purchase of assault-weapons and sub-machine guns but now that he is no longer in control his opponents have repealed this law making the buying of the likes of AK47's and Uzi sub-machine guns legal again.

The gun-lobby said that the banning of such weapons was "damaging to our civil-liberties" !

WELL...I am a Brit and I am proud that we have some of the strongest legislation in the world against the ordinary public owning and using firearms:

As American youth, ( most of you ), do you feel that the free sale of assault weapons or other guns is a good thing or do you think that it is time that America gave up it's love-affair with firearms ?

Whatever they do, it's too little, too late. No matter what legislature crosses the Senate it would be impossible to collect even 50% of the guns out there. They will also be unable to prevent most sales of it and it will be the moonshine years all over again.

I don't own a gun but I don't have anything against people owning them. The town of Kennesaw, Georgia, requires EVERY house to have a gun. I would also like to add that it has one of the lowest crime rates in Metro Atlanta. By the way, Atlanta's crime rate as a whole is atrocious.

The legalization of these weapons will not have a significant impact on society.

I think throughout the next 5 years, shootings will still be at the same rate, only perhaps the body count will rise a little.

A man that works with my father owns a lot of these "illegal" guns and he's glad that the ban is gone. Now he can use more than $4000 worth of guns that have been collecting dust in his closet over the past couple of years.

The kind of people who are willing to register these types of guns and own them legally aren't who you need to worry about. It's the gangsters and low lifes who already own unregistered guns that cause these problems....and they've always had access to these sorts of weapons.

There still be state laws that will make it hard to own assault-rifles or semi-automatics (Especially in California). Another thing will be cost. These weapons will most likely to have a very high price tag. Even the ammunition won't be cheap. So whoever wants to buy one of these weapons better have a big wallet. Is not going to be cheap. I personally don't mind. As long as the gun owner is required to buy a trigger lock and as long as the weapon is regristrate is fine by me.

it really doesn't bother me. like people have said, the people that bother me by having those kinds of guns have had them and have been using them, despite a ban, so this ban is really just allowing collectors and the like to obtain them.

While I must agree that the number of ILLEGAL weapons available to criminals is a great worry to law-abiding citizens I feel that ordinary people should have no need for the ownership of firearms in a truly civilised society.

I feel that if guns are easily obtained then there will be more of them floating around for criminals to get their hands on and even the well-screened and stable civilian owners of guns can resort to their use very easily in a situation of stress either for suicide or for murder.

I do not know what the figures are for murders or suicides committed by legally owned firearms in Britain or America is but I do know that the horrific slaughter of a whole classroom of 5 year-old children in Dunblane caused the laws here to be severely tightened up as to who could own and use handguns and rifles. ( Thomas Hamilton - the person who committed this atrocity - owned FOUR handguns legally in order to be able to walk into that classroom and murder all those children and their teacher ).

I do realise that the love-affair that America has with handguns in particular and other rifles and firearms in general would make it almost impossible now to withdraw all of the weapons that are in the hands of the population at large but I feel that at some point the American people must realise that in a civilised society there is no need for such weapons.

I don't think that we in Britain will ever go back on the total ban that is in force here now but one thing is sure and that is that we are now having - pro-rata our head of population with America - almost as much trouble now with illegal guns as you are having.

The next job is to get these guns out of the hands of the criminals.

Not an easy job but one to certainly strive for I believe.

The idea of British people getting easy access to assault-weapons never mind shotguns and handguns and hunting rifles is now anathema to the way of life in civilised Britain. Maybe one day it will be the same in America !

For those interested, here is the report on the Dunblane atrocity:

http://century.guardian.co.uk/1990-1999/Story/0,6051,112749,00.html

And I feel that the British people need to realize guns don't kill people....People kill people.

i would stop worrying so much about what the United States does with their fire arms and start worrying about countries that are in serious need of gun control.

It's easier to get a Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher in Iraq than it is to obtain a licensed gun in America.

You don't hear about "insurgent shoot outs" in America....but you sure the hell hear about it in the middle east.

Take all the gun related deaths in all of the United States over a year, and it still doesn't equal the death rate during one month in some middle Eastern countries.

The ownership of weapons in the Middle East is just another version of gun-law similar to the American one. The only difference is that they are expected to own a Kalashnikov and to fire it into the air in public when they need to celebrate.

I agree that it is people that kill and not the guns...that's a no-brainer....the important point is that the greater the number of triggers that are available to be pulled the more index fingers will be found that want to pull-em !

I assume you dont hunt much? I personally own a 30-06 rifle that I use for deer hunting and a 20 gauge automatic for dove hunting. I keep them unloaded and locked up in a gun safe when I am not hunting with them and I tend think Im a pretty civilized gal myself.

I look at it like this. When America banned alcahol, organized crime rose through the sale of the boos. They got rich. The ban didn't really stop anyone from getting a drink, they just got illegal boos. If we ban guns, it will pretty much stop nothing, if someone has the initative to kill, they will have the initiative to buy an illegal gun. Most murderers that kill will guns already get them Illegally off the street. We cannot stop the illegal sale of guns by stoping legal sales of guns. Clinton's ban didn't do much, in fact the thing taht determined what an assualt weapon was, was the features on it, like folding stock, color, etc etc. It had nothing to do with caliber and rate of fire. So really if you had a semi-automatic without a folding stock, you could own it, even if it had the same rate of fire. Bush said he would sign something if they made up a new ban but congress didn't want to do it. And also, if someone wants to kill with a firearm, they can do it, even if guns are legal or not. Its not the access to firearms that makes the rate of americas death so high, its all the stupid people. Low-lifes that live in America

First off all, the law wasn't repealed. There was a 10-year limit, then the law had to be re-activated. It wasn't, so the ban is gone. The call for the ban started in 1993, after a deadly shootout between robbers and LAPD. I know banning assault weapons won't get them out of the hands of crimminals and they could steal some if they didn't have any. I'm generally against gun bans, but the ban on assault weapons made sense. Using an AK-47 against a deer isn't very smart. I see no need for people to have these guns.

nothing wrong with taking a gun to a shooting range for target practice.

I've been hunting 2x and to the range 7x....both are equally fun.

true, but if I'm gonna spend a lot of money on a gun, I wanna use it. Going down to the range and holding down the trigger may be fun for a bit, but I want more use out of one.

I never got the big deal about fire arms. And I certainly don't see the point in owning automatic assault rifles. Those are not for hunting, those are used for killing people.

But I don't care, really. Either way guns will always be a problem in this society.

i don't have anything against people owning assault weapons, so long as they register them, it just i dont think owning a semi-machine gun or any assualt weapon is really nessesary...what are you going to use it for?

Which is why I use a 30-06
and I agree....the average citizen has no business owning a gun like AK-47.

*averge Joe* How do I fire this thing? *winds up shooting everyone and everything around him, including himself* People might think M-16's are cool to have, but unless they've been trained (like army training) then they have no business having them.

AKs and Ozis are still illegal under federal law the assualt ban was for weapons like M-16 and M-4 Carbines. Personally i don't like the idea of assualt weapons being sold.... but either way if i wanted one when the ban was up i could still buy one and some other rather nasty weapons.... come one the found someone selling a stinger the thing is like 4 feet long... Considering that the British had an arms ban on us during the revolutionary war and we still had enough arms to wage a war

Okay, first of all, I posted this in the Bush thread a while back, so this is old news.

Second of all, I think it is incredibly stupid that it is not in effect. These guns are made to kill the most amount of people in the least amount of time, period. Hunting? Do you want a deer with half its guts pouring out or meat? Please.

Dude you can pick one up easy off the street... might as well get them registered

Yes, instead of just criminals having those, let's let normal people have them. Great.

so if an armed ban of phycos like in the hollywood shoot out aquire AKs and the police and everyone else are completely out gunned i'll blame you

The unfortunate fact is that there is no easy solution to the gun problem in the US. Even if we make it difficult for people to obtain them, they will find a way to get the illegally of the street. The only thing we can do is just accept this and move on, and hope for the best.

sadly, BF is right. The only other way tyo deal with it is to seize all the weapons, but that'll never happen

america is the land of opportunity. you can acquire a gun from walmart, for f*cks sake. people will acquire such weapons regardless of legality.

But it still doesn't mean wouldn't should just give up. The reason Americans were allowed to have guns was to protect themselves since they didn't actually have the police back then. It was also meant as something to keep the King of England out of your house.

The use of them was needed during the Frontier time since Indians or bears might invade your home and you don't have any cops to call. We have cops nowadays, why do we even need guns as protection. What are we afraid of, the King of England coming into our homes nowadays and taking our stuff! If the public is going to have guns, then why does the cops need them, just let the public handle criminals who have guns.

IMO, the only people who should have guns should be police officers, sportsmen, and the military. Hunting lincense, guns, and registeration should be highly cost/taxed (into the thousands) so that only a few can afford them, and those that have them only have a few since it cost so much. Weekly inspection on the number of guns belong to each officer (they should be given only what they need) to make sure none is lost/stolen/ or sold.

If the public didn't have guns, the jobs of officers would be much easier. As for the Alcohol Prohibition comparison, guns are easily manufactioned. The metal cost money, not to mention needing it melted. You can't smuggle them easily either since metal detectors can be put in to prevent this. And even if guns are smuggled in, the supplies of bullets would need to be smuggled in as well. Once a gun runs out of bullets, they're going to need it smuggled in.

And think about who uses them, lazy, stupid, criminals of society for the most part (who rather rob and kill than make a decent living). Guns are cheap and easy to operate . That's why people use them to commit crimes: easy to operate, range attack, effective at killing/maming, and all is needed is the pull of the trigger to take away a life - unlike knives or crow bars which might need more then one hit at close range to kill someone. And think about the messy that will cause, the DNA the will get onto the knife or crow bar and the criminals.

We should atleast try to get an amendment to ban guns instead saying it'll never happen and so we shouldn't try.

this is the reason why i don not belive in the right to bear arms. it should be a PRIVELEDGE to bear arms. something that has to be earned. anybody who wishes to acquie a fire arm should be given an examintion... both intellectually and mentally. and like beyonder said, the prices of such should be sky high (but that only gives the rich and pompous a front seat). what the government needs to do is to ammend the constitution and imply stricter laws when it comes to buying a gun.

Thanks mc peee pants for the support. I'd also add that drug lords ain't going to just clear the rainforest floors and drop some bullets into the ground, let the sun shine and the clouds rain, and expect a crop full of guns to pop up, waiting to be harvested. They can pull it off with drugs - but not guns.

And think of the COST if they do succeed such as metal, fuel to melt the metal, and craftsmen. When they do bring the guns in, the demand by criminals and others would be greater than the quantity smuggled in, thus the price would be jacked up to a level that most criminals might not be able to afford it. And I doubt it'll drop since again guns aren't easily made or smuggled compared to drugs. And the smuggling of bullets would also been needed. If not, criminals might have to think of using their bullets wisely or run out. Luxuries such as driveby shootings, murdering others for no reason, shoot out between gangs, random shooting at cops, etc. would drop.

It's party time at the NRA:

http://www.nra.org/Article.aspx?id=886

I think that's lame as hell. They take away half our other freedoms, but we can still buy AK-47's. That's the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time.

AKs are still banned

But Paps said...

"...his opponents have repealed this law making the buying of the likes of AK47's and Uzi sub-machine guns legal again."

click the link fellas... it says the ban had already expired.

and f*ck the NRA. the NRA held a gun convention in columbine ten days or so after the shooting (maybe sooner, can't put my finger on it).and f*ck charlton heston. all these redneck bastards wanna do is shoot at something. the only good thing about the NRA is the fact that these gun owners are registered.

wow thanks for the stereotype! judge us before you know us *******!
anyways i am a NRA member and my family owns about 2-5 ak-47s and we havent used them for anything other than target practice with bowling pins!

also BF is right. it IS futile.there is no such a thing as peace or civility.its all a bunch silly ideals made up by pascifists.

it's not my stereotype. that has been going on for a while now. i just said it. plus there is no need to be offended when you know you aren't stereotypical. people say a lot of sterotyped sh!t.

wow, i said stereotype and stereotyped related words a lot in this post. anyways... my apologies if i offended you. i apologize on how i said it, but my principle stands.

My family owns some guns, but quite a few of them have some historical value, and only one or two of them is very powerful... No automatic weapons either. My dad keeps them locked up nice and safe, and tbh I really enjoy going out to the range and shooting some targets. But I really don't think automatic weapons should be legal for civilians to own, they're just too goddamn dangerous. Obviously you can kill somebody with almost any kind of gun, but a .22 is considerably safer than a big-assed assault rifle that fires in rapid bursts. Plus, I don't see WHY anybody needs an automatic weapon for target practice?

exactly. anybody remember those guys who robbed a bank armed with auto rifles? they just started raining bullets at the cops. no reason what so ever for a civilian to own an AK.

i went to a gun range once and i have to admit, shooting a gun is a totally different high. i can see how one can be an enthusiast.

I can't agree with anyone owning an automatic weapon for hunting. I mean come on. Maybe a gun collector who has it registered but who else really needs them? At least when they were illegal the police knew that whoever had one shouldn't. Now how will they know? Their job is dangerous enough.

I am not a Michael Moore fan but I remember something that stuck with me from Bowling for Columbine. If you live in Detroit there are hundreds of murders every year. Go across the water into Ontario and there had been 1 murder in Winsor during the last few years. Is the difference guns? Nope, they have just as many guns as we do. They use them for hunting not killing each other. Not so in the US. 'I like your sneakers. I am gonna pop a cap in you a$$ and take um.' It is not guns so much as the people behind them. However if a person get upset and they don't have access to a weapon how can they shoot someone. They can't.

Don't get me wrong I believe in gun owners rights but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Assault weapons are not needed. Famous NRA slogan... Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Well they are right the guns don't kill people it's the bullets fired from the guns. I would rather have someone upset and coming at me with a knife then someone coming towards me with a gun. Just MHO.

TrAnCeDuO is right about one thing, 'there is no such a thing as peace or civility.' How exactly is have an automatic weapon going to change that?

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people".

My response to that...

Guns make it easier and more probable for people to kill people.

you can't talk peace and have a gun... whatever gun it is.

JP......

The truth is the exact opposite !

I have been a gun-user for most of my life !

I hunt and cull Red Deer with my 7.62 Mauser about once a month and I own a beautiful Luigi-Franchi semi-auto 12 bore shotgun ( legally altered so as to fire only three shots instead of five ). I used to own a very valuable Krupps-made triple-barrel 16 bore that had it's third 7.62 rifle barrel underneath the two shot-barrels. I sold it as I had no need for it.

I have used handguns overtly and concealed during my time abroad in the British Civil Service so I do understand what it is like to be firearms-aware.

I still think that only service personel, ( NOT ordinary civilian police ), should have access to legal firearms and that we should strive as hard as we can to disarm the criminals. Of course if we want to do this we SHOULD have - and do have - a special elite force within the police that are capable of using firearms safely and effectively too.

PS....The specialist group in the British Met' used to be called SO11 and now the groups from SO1 to SO11 are now called SCD !

this is the thing about guns in America. stats show that percentage wise most of gun crimes are committed with illegally obtained ones. assualt rifles have been illegal and what not yet there were still Ak's, m16's tech 9's on the streets. maybe i sound a little naive, but i dont think that someone would go out and purchase one of these weapons, that is going to be registered in every way, even ballistically(gun version of fingerprinting, or when the keep convicted rapists DNA on file) just to commit a crime.

The argument here is that if the country is flowing with legal guns then it is all the easier for criminals to get their hands on these legal weapons, then making them illegal.

IDKFA

Well, is their right to own guns. Now, I myself support Charles Heston. Heck, I consider him more like a real President than Bush or Clinton. No, is not only rednecks. I betcha they have members that are Asian, Hispanic, and Blacks. Besides the NRA does condemn people who own guns illegially. I'm glad the ban is over. Now, there will be stricted laws agains ppl that own guns illegally. Guns are lethal weapons and so are many things. What? you only need guns to kill people? Come on! anyone can use almost anything to kill another person. The thing with guns is that they are lethal than let's say a katana.

This all means that the ban is over and most likely heavier penalties will be apply to those that own guns without permits.

Agreed. Good critical thinking and reasoning, that's what's needed, not the old we have a right to bare arms speech. That was written into the constitution back in the days when the U.S. had a weak military force and there were no police officers to protect citizens.




I also agree with you Omega on the subject of whether guns kill people or people kill people. With a gun, I or anyone can take a life with the pull of a trigger and do it in a clean, effective way. If I had a knife, bat, crowbar, or kitanna, I going to actually have to get close to the person to inflict damage and kill them. And they actually have a chance to survive by fighting back with rocks/bricks, stick, bat, mace, etc or run as fast a they can. With guns, it' the bullets that chases after the person - not the murderer. An effective killing instrument - thus so popular among criminals.

again, all apologies about the redneck comment. and i'm pretty sure that the members of the NRA consists of probably one of the most diverse members.

In all honesty, most people will not buy assault rifles to begin with....as a general rule those suckers are hard to hide...there is the chance one will be used in a deadly shooting preplanned, premeditated, and all the rest, but I'd rather see it coming than get shot by a hidden pistol....

Would seeing it matter if they drove by, pointed it out the window, and pulled the triggers thus sending rounds of bullets everywhere in your direction?

And if most people will not buy them, why make them legal? Your argument is basically that most of those who do would be criminals. So are you in support of making it legal for a few law abiding citizens who want them to buy and the rest easily accessable for the criminals?

if you read the true ban statement it say only certain classes of arms are legal and there is a seperate ban on AK and Ozi

Apologies, master jedi

I don't watch the news much, I was only quoting what people had said before

Very well said. There are 60% more killings when the ban is not in effect... yeah, it's a great idea to expire it.

Just going off on a tangent here slightly. It kind of makes me laugh that there are places in the world where it is illegal to own weapons such as Nunchaku, even if your a registered and insured martial arts practitioner, but you can legally own and shoot a gun without being trained to use it safely.

Forgive me but isnt that just a little

No, Nunchuks are far more dangerous then firearms. Especially assault rifles.

Seriously, that's a good point you make, never really thought of that.

To kill a person with a Nachuk or a Katana one needs to be up-close and personal and have the ability to use them and the mindset to use them to kill.

With a gun all you need is an itchy index-finger and a don't give-a-damn attitude from a distance.

No comparison !

cowboy YE-HAH! I'm gonna go shoot me some gay critters!

The ban didn't do anything to prevent or lower any form of crime. Victims with multiple wounds, multiple victims, etc. It was solely based on cosmetic features. It also DID NOT have anything to do with fully-automatic firearms. A real AK-47 is still very difficult to obtain. Semi-automatic variants on the other hand can be purchased easily for about $300 (U.S.). They could be even when the ban was in affect. I know because I bought one (a SAR-1). I don't use it for hunting, because I don't hunt, although with a legal 5-round magazine it would not be an unusual hunting firearm. What I do use it for is pulverizing tin cans and paper targets. You really don't get much more fun than that. Also, haven't several recent studies shown Great Britain's criminal rates starting to approach those of the United States? Like that in Australia too. One last thing. Assault rifles where only used in about 1-2% of crimes before the ban, and because this figure went down slightly it does not mean that lives were saved. Overall deaths were the same.

I doubt the Uk is approching the US standards of Gun crime.

Because everyone is the US by law is allowed a gun. But not in the uk so it will always be lower then the US

shocking i...think...i...love you...

I can't say I am for gun control I mean people before geting some should wait a while and get a background check but not to take our guns away from us right away.
I mean going back to world war two.That was the first thing Hitler did he took away all the guns from the people in garmany thus geting power.
Wait a second there seen to be a match here Clinton=Hitler!Anyone ever noted that before.JM

the lack of intelligence in your post, JM... THAT is something I noticed yes and it greatly concerns me

comparing hitler and clinton shows your lack of historical knowledge, evenmore that you claim that "taking away all the guns from the people in garmany" gave hitler the power... I suggest you urgently read some books about how hitler came to power.
And DO note the Nazis became the largest part in the Reichstag on July 1932 and Hindenburg calling Hitler to be chancellor of a coalition cabinet on january 30, 1933.

Hey people compare bush to Hilter so I did the same.And it is the first thing Hitler did in world War two.I don't like guns but I don't think it should be taken away just likle that.
It leaves us powerless and who knows then what would happen.JM

yeah, cause you never know when an evil british king will try and overtake the US again

comparing anyone, even bush, to hitler is stupid to do because you simply can't compare anyone to him... though come to think of it, he does take away quite some ideas of him

this thread should be a no brainer


wtf is the practical use of an automatic assault rifle?
when is the last time a hunter shot a deer with an ak47?
or defended his home from an intruder with an uzi?

bush promised to not let the ban expire, and he let it expire, more proof he's a lying careless scumbag who cares NOTHING for our safety.

idiots like to twist this around and cry about their constitutional rights, but dont realise they are stretching it waaaaaay too far. technically, a nuclear warhead is "arms"...so should we all have on? automatic weapons are WMDs and should have remained banned.

F**K BUSH

Yerss with his Simpsons quotes...

I think what it is, is that most people who cry the 2nd Amendment don't know what it really means. Back when it was written, it meant that each state had the right to form its own standing militia. Obviously it's very outdated today.

Do I believe that we need gun control? Yes. Why in hell do you NEED to own an assault weapon? I can answer that question...you don't. Plain and simple.

JM

I must say I see no purpose really, or civil liberty, in have such high powered weapons available. What are they really there for? I mean, home security is often brought up, but a single bullet would stop a home invader if one wanted to stop them so badly. Do we really need guns that can penetrate the walls of homes and spray bullets everywhere?
Of course Australia had pretty liberal gun laws until a few years ago when a disturbed chap went on an "automatic killing spree" as one paper put it. And coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been trying to take everyones guns away, good and bad, which seems sensible, but they have rights to....

Are you saying then that they should be ban?JM Just wondering!

Well, I am not personally involved, but from a distance I would say yes, I mean there are all the other guns still allowed. Of course if I lived in the US I might feel different, but to me it seems a bit much, overkill as it were, to need such high powered weapons in everyday life.

I heard the gun ban wasn't doing shit for crime anyway...

http://www.justfacts.com/gun_control.htm

you're (not) a slow learner

I am going to check out that link.Thanks Cheese!Anyway if it was not doing good then why brother with it?We can't blame everything that goes wrong because of the gun.
It is just plain silly to do that.JM