In The Wake Of This Tragedy

[4588686]

Chambered for which round?

 

I forgot: What barrel length? That's kind of important, too.

 

The reason that SWAT teams use the AR15 as opposed to a more traditional hunting rifle is barrel length?  That's pretty strange since I've seen some reasonably short hunting rifles.  

 

 

If I wanted to kill 30 people in a building as quickly as possible would I be better off using an AR-15 or a normal semi-automatic hunting rifle?  

[Winchester]

The reason that SWAT teams use the AR15 as opposed to a more traditional hunting rifle is barrel length?  That's pretty strange since I've seen some reasonably short hunting rifles.  

 

 

If I wanted to kill 30 people in a building as quickly as possible would I be better off using an AR-15 or a normal semi-automatic hunting rifle?  

 

No, I'm asking you which barrel lengths and calibers you're talking about. You're referring to a platform. That platform has many variations.

[ardillacid]

If I wanted to kill 30 people in a building as quickly as possible would I be better off using an AR-15 or a normal semi-automatic hunting rifle?  

 

Trick question, you're better off not using a rifle at all. 

[4588686]

No, I'm asking you which barrel lengths and calibers you're talking about. You're referring to a platform. That platform has many variations.

 

What substantive relevance does barrel length have?  I guess for caliber I mean the usual .223

[Winchester]

What substantive relevance does barrel length have?  I guess for caliber I mean the usual .223

 

Why are SBR's prohibited unless one gets a tax stamp?

 

Hell, for that matter, why do SWAT teams carry rifles with high capacity magazines for incidents involving one shooter? I mean, most home defense (which is CQB, which is where a short barrel really helps. Hence the short barrels on shotguns like the Winchester Defender) involving a civilian and non-government invader of a home will be perhaps one or two shooters. How often do SWAT teams encounter a high number of assailants? Really, they're typically dealing with one shooter, maybe a handful.

 

This sounds so terribly similar to the situations some civilians face. One, perhaps two, assailants. Most home invasions involve drugs (thanks, government!)--not talking about those.

 

I guess I just don't understand you supporters of class systems.

Edited December 16, 2012 by Winchester

[ardillacid]

 

 

 

 

Most hunting rifles that I would see out in the woods would hold about 5 bullets and were a lot more cumbersome to reload than the weapons in that picture.  

 

Cool pic.

 

Do clips only come in one size? Why is my .30-06 is easier to reload than my brother's AR-15? 

[StMichael]

It is impossible to make sense of this evil unleashed. Especially when we have very little to go on.

 

One thing is certain, one person did this and destroyed the lives of many.

 

I have avoided, as best I can, all coverage on this. 

 

For me, the last month we have read about a football player who killed his girlfriend and himself, another football player who killed a team mate in DUI, another student stopped prior to killing his entire high school, a man, yesterday, who shot 50 shots in CA, a mall shooting, etc.

 

Is it TV? Movies? Video games? Is it the home that lacks God? Is it mental illness? Are we no longer our brother's keeper? Is it a coarseness in our society?  I don't believe there is one answer, but we are witnessing one side (progressives) doing what they do best, blame the object and not the person. From what I have read, this person was denied the ability to purchase a weapon but stole the weapons. 

 

What I do know is that we need to pray for the souls lost and their survivors while not diminishing them to footnote of a debate.

[God the Father]

This is my biggest qualm. I find it hard to believe the maudlin showmanship of media and individuals alike (not aimed at either of you in particular) while the same number of children who died in Massachusetts today also died of malaria in Africa in less than the span of an American sitcom. I wish someone would explain to me why those children, dying equally or more terrible deaths, are less valuable. Is it because they're far away? Because they're poor? Because they don't look like us?

 

There's a few factors: that it's close to home, that there are young people involved, and that it's pretty senseless--the deaths aren't caused by scarcity of resources or the violence that accompanies that situation; but just apparently sadistic carnage. Sandy Hook and Aurora seem to have this in common (though I may be wrong and plz correct if so)

 

These deaths gain added attention becasue they [i]can[/i] and [i]are[/i] politicized; as apparently every media outlet has a political agenda it needs to push or defend. Any outlet that reports on "thousands more deaths in Africa today" is touching on a story that is pretty politically unproductive, with directives to ignore or intervene in the situation equally politically unappealing. So the story goes under the rug.

 

I've spent some time around firearms in my line of work, but rarely hear reference to "twenty-two" caliber weapons outside of a hunting context. Combat weapons are usually designated in metric, as in "5.56mm." Which I admit sounds way less hardcore.

 

Interestingly enough, for a CQB situation like school hallways and classrooms,  a common 9mm or .45 caliber handgun is probably preferable, in the absence of "machine pistol" type guns, which are illegal for common citizens but widely available to criminals. Capable of inflicting similar casualty levels, anyway, without looking quite as sinister or offering intense buzzwords to the media like  ".223 caliber rifle"

Edited December 16, 2012 by God the Father

[Maggyie]

I have to say I don't understand social grief. When I heard about this story yesterday, I thought it was a horrible thing to happen, and I feel bad on some level for these people, but I don't have an emotional attachment to them. I don't know them, they are as unknown to me as all the other people who die every day. Maybe it's a flaw in me, I don't know, but I don't understand stories of people weeping on 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination or this.

 

I've been thinking a lot recently about what is love? What does it mean to love another person? I think love is largely a selfish thing...why do we care about the handful of people in our lives, why do we love them, and not feel the same way about the billions of other people in the world? I think it's because the people in our lives make us feel good, are part of our memories, etc. We can't imagine ourselves without them, and in some sense loving them is a way of avoiding death, having something to hold on to in this world. I feel the same way about grief over these kinds of events, it's more about our fear of having this happen to us, than some vague thing called "love." Can I "love" these children who died? I don't know. I woke up today and my life went on as it always does. I'm not crippled by their death.

 

I think there is something to the idea that we have made love into an idol. It's an emotional attachment. I think of what does it mean to love a spouse or your own child. It's largely an emotional thing, and it's reflected in our inability to let people be, to see the people in our lives as their own people, on their own journey, that we share and help along the way, but ultimately, we are all going on our own journey to death, where we will be utterly alone. That seems really sad and despairing, but if we simply accept love as something temporary, something that is not really "real," then it makes death easier to understand, as the logical end of our individual lives. And if you're religious I guess you can believe in a supernatural theory of love as something real...though it's interesting to me that Christianity revolves around the resurrection, the idea that love is something tied to this world, and we must rise again forever and return to our earthly form. Seems like a myth to me, but I can understand it if I understand love as an earthly thing, and the resurrection as a way to save our selfish attachment to this world.

 

Sorry for going on a tangent, and I am not trying to argue about anyone's experience or response to anything...simply stating honestly my own feeling.

 

The experience you're talking about is empathy. People grieve when these events occur, even if they have no direct tie to the event, because they empathize with the humans who were involved.

[eagle_eye222001]

1) I don't think I've heard any serious person suggest that we should pass a law which "basically" bans all guns. That's a strawman, which is a fallacy. So much for your pro-gun logic.

 

2) Why did this lady have an AR-15 rifle? I support the idea that people without a history of crime or mental-illness should be able to own a handgun, provided they are duly licensed and that this license is renewed by the individual every few years, having proven that they are still sane and capable of handling the weapon safely. But this sort of rifle...what the hell is up with that?

 

1.  The restrictions often suggested are most of the time intended to basically make access so difficult that no one bothers.  Note D.C. vs. Heller, "assault" weapon ban, etc.

 

2.  It is her 2nd amendment right.  Which is ultimately in place to protect us from the government becoming too powerful.

[kujo]

1.  The restrictions often suggested are most of the time intended to basically make access so difficult that no one bothers.  Note D.C. vs. Heller, "assault" weapon ban, etc.

 

2.  It is her 2nd amendment right.  Which is ultimately in place to protect us from the government becoming too powerful.

 

1. That's your interpretation, not some universally held belief.

 

2. You shouldn't have the right to have that weapon. If the possibility for this sort of thing is the price of the 2nd Amendment, then there's something wrong with the Constitution.

[Winchester]

1. That's your interpretation, not some universally held belief.

 

2. You shouldn't have the right to have that weapon. If the possibility for this sort of thing is the price of the 2nd Amendment, then there's something wrong with the Constitution.

 

I'm not property. I don't receive rights from you, or any other human on this planet.

[ardillacid]

I'm not property. I don't receive rights from you, or any other human on this planet.

 

 

That's your interpretation, not some universally held belief.

[kujo]

I'm not property. I don't receive rights from you, or any other human on this planet.

 

 

Who said that this right is endowed by God?

[Winchester]

That's your interpretation, not some universally held belief.

 

That's just, like, your opinion, man.