LonelyNinja

Will be people be uncomfortable? Yes. Will there be a Civil War? No. Why? Most Americans don't really give a shit one way or another about banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. It's just like any other politically-charged issue in this country, where we only hear the most vocal minority (italicized for emphasis) regarding a topic. For example, the majority of Americans are actually in favor of same-sex marriage. However, anyone who pays attention to the news (especially if foreigners are looking at us) will notice that there are more articles and pieces about same-sex marriage protests and anti-gay sentiment than there are of people saying, "Sure, let the gays marry and/or adopt." So just because the NRA and select lunatics individuals or groups are up-in-arms about the whole thing doesn't mean that everyone is rallying to protect guns.

In fact, a lot of people around the country are turning in their guns, even ones that are legal to own and wouldn't be banned following any of the Obama administration's proposals. But you are right in that there will be probably be violent retaliations to strengthening gun control laws. It just won't result in a severe schism of the country, just pockets of resistance, particularly in the South and Midwest.
Technically, it wouldn't be the main American military, since our Constitution bans the use of the Army, Air Force, Navy, or CIA from operating on domestic soil. It'd still be local police, FBI, and the National Guard, but still. BUT STILL!

I'm an Independent who thinks that there should be more government involvement in gun regulation/control. But that doesn't mean I'm afraid of guns, nor does it mean that I don't want to own assault rifles and high-capacity magazines at some point in my life (because fuck yeah, BARs and 100+ round magazines!). Just because he's not an American doesn't mean he is somehow less knowledgeable about the topic. Hell, we're on a forum about Japanese comics, but we're all in the loop about Japanese culture and manga/anime norms. It's actually a good thing to get an outside perspective precisely because it allows Americans to pull our heads out of our collective ass and rethink our positions on a topic.

The only reason people say enforcement is better than more laws is because there's a lack of police officers, ATF agents, etc. If we wanted better enforcement, then these agencies should be hiring more people. As the case is, many of these agencies aren't, at least where I live. Also, enforcing the rather convoluted state laws drains resources. We don't have dozens of police officers patrolling gun auctions and conventions, which is where most of mainstream illegal purchases occur (black market is a whole 'nother issue). We should, but we don't have the manpower or the resources. Federal laws will make it easier to enforce because now all of our states' police agencies will be on the same page regarding the issues.

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Numinous

Well, didn't know that, thanks for the information.

Well, business that profit from shooting ranges could benefit a lot from gun control. People want to fire a kickass gun? They'd just have to pay a fee and have fun in a secure place.

But I agree with the rest of your post and I do have to say that my family owns an hunting rifle and I've seen it being employed for sport, so don't think I'm anti-guns, I'm only in favor of a sensible use of them.

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LonelyNinja

There are shooting ranges like that already, but so far the limitation is that only red states (meaning heavily Republican, like Arizona, Texas, and so on) allow the bigger, awesomerest weapons. You won't see a California shooting range that allows any magazine that goes over fifteen, and that kind of puts a damper on things. But that also illustrates my point about federal laws about guns instead of individual states. I think it's kind of silly and dangerous that I can buy an automatic weapon in Arizona, where I go to school, can easily smuggle it into California, where I live, but not be able to shoot it anywhere legally. Either make it so that I can legally own automatic weapons (now, nothing extreme like any Kalashnikovs, but maybe an MP5 or something {with, of course, a magazine within reason}) or make it so that you can't have any automatic weapons anywhere. And believe me, I know it sounds crazy that I would want one over the other, but that's where my beliefs are.

Yeah, in a perfect world, all guns should be used for their intended purposes, like hunting or self-defense. Instead, people are dicks, and so we need more control over said dicks getting high powered, high-capacity weaponry.

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ask me anything

Just to elaborate on your point a bit further, I'm gonna leave this here. I'd really like Jekyl_Hyde to try to defend what happens in that video.

Let's face the cold hard facts. Most people honestly don't give a fuck what someone does with something they sell. I hate to put it like that, but it's true of most things people do. Most times people tell themselves "Well it's not my fault what other people do.", and while that's is true to some extent, it still makes them the enablers of what happens later on. People selling .50 caliber weapons off the back of a pick-up truck to people who flat out say they probably couldn't pass a background check, is simply inexcusable. And still the people selling the weapons honestly don't worry about the outcome. Why not you ask? Well, why would they worry! It's not like they have anything to worry about. I mean, even if the weapons they bought are used in a serious crime, it's not likely the cops would do anything to the seller anyway. It's simply too much trouble to trace back the sales of a gun that was paid in cash in a random parking lot, from a random guy off the internet, who's name was either never known or long forgotten.

I'm all in favor of registering guns. I own 4 myself, and have no problem letting Uncle Sam know that I do so, if it means all the other fucktards out there have to do likewise. Perhaps with an actual paper trail to connect people to the guns they own, (and stiff penalties for illegally selling them) they won't be so eager to sell firearms to random people they met on the internet.

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