My favorite items are 3. and, especially 5. Let's take 3. first: Bump-stock devices are not made for accuracy, but for the fun of mimicking automatic fire. Mimicking automatic fire is fun, but attending country music shows in open-air venues is terrifying. Automatic fire has a military application- providing suppressive fire to diminish an enemy's ability to attack, but in the absence of a hostile force, it's really only effective in slaughtering masses of people in close proximity. With the reduced accuracy of automatic fire, one engages in spray and pray- a lot of lead is put into the air, in the hopes that at least one projectile with hit a target. Tragically, shooting congregated concertgoers is like shooting fish in a barrel- 'spray and pray' becomes 'spray and slay'. Bump stocks aren't of value to the sportsman, unless one considers mass-shootings of human beings a sport.
Item five is a real howler- leave it to some Breitbart asshole to apply the label 'typical leftist war on the poor' to describe a reaction to a millionaire's very real act of war against some Heartlanders who wanted to enjoy a night of music which was cheaper than a $200 slide-stock. Sorry, Buford, but if you can't afford a real automatic weapon, you should have chosen your parents more wisely.
I doubt that anything will be accomplished- there will be the typical false pieties, the typical admonitions that having a frank discussion of America's mass-murder problem is somehow 'disrespecting' the families of the slain. It's the same old shit, so on with the body count.
Seems to me that there is about one degree of separation between the Vegas shooter, Mr. Paddock, and that nice middle class couple who sported "Fuck Your Feelings" at a Trump rally before the election. Trump surfs on a rage that has no empathy at all.
ReplyDelete**SIGH**
ReplyDeleteMr. Bastard is one of the smartest people I know, and even HE is falling for the NRA's latest ploy.
'Bump Stocks' are a joke. If the Vegas Shooter had used his scoped rifles and high-cap magazines in a normal manner, at 330 meters he could have killed three or four times as many people. Just throwing a lot of un-aimed lead downrange is a stupid waste. And you mentioned military doctrine. Any Sergeant who found a soldier using full auto at 300 meters without significant incoming fire would plant a boot so far up the ass of that eleven bravo he'd never switch to full auto again.
But here's the thing. Not even the NRA or the gun lobby cares about 'Bump Stocks'. There are only a few thousand of them, and they represent less than a rounding error in firearms accessory revenues. They'll be delighted to let their lap-dogs in congress restrict or ban them. And the gun-control lobby can do a victory lap, having solved a problem that doesn't exist and having spent ALL of their political capital banning a useless toy.
Then, the next time somebody wants to restrict something that's actually killing people by the thousands in the US, they'll smirk and say "you see how it is with these leftists? You TRY to work with them, but they really just care about pushing us all down that slippery slope to gun confiscation. Fuck that - we in the gun lobby just give up on trying to work with you lunatics".
And just like that, bait taken and swallowed, and the whole actual argument lost for another half dozen years. A half dozen years in which half a million people will be killed or injured, and millions more will have their lives wrecked - all by those plain stupid little handguns that nobody talks about because a guy with a bunch of rifles lit up the national news.
Already, since his rampage, handguns have killed more American Citizens than he did. But yeah, let's go all in on something that most of us have never even HEARD of before this week.
Fucking brilliant...
I should be clear.
ReplyDeleteI don't care one way or another. Ban the goddam things, they serve no actual purpose and are just another range toy. (Note: Bump fire is a real thing, no special accessories required - they just make it easier to do. We were screwing around with bump fire on the range ten years ago, but nobody I know can afford to burn through $2000 worth of ammunition on a range day.)
Just PLEASE understand what you're giving the right-wing loonies by taking this bone they're throwing, and how much it's going to cost any real efforts at restricting firearm availability.