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Why liberals, people of color and LGBTQ Americans say they're buying guns (www.npr.org)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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Since Trump's election, gun groups catering to progressives and people of color report a surge in interest as they look to defend themselves in a country that, to them, feels increasingly unstable.

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[–] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

wing everyday people to own assault rifles etc would be viewed as a dangerous dereliction of duty by the government.

The US doesn't do that either. Very few people own assault rifles, you need a very expensive and difficult to obtain license and have since 1986. You're falling for gun grabber propaganda.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    Anyone who could pass the FBI background check and the rest of the NFA process can own pre-86 transferable machine guns. Assuming they could afford the 5 figure or more prices they tend to fetch.

    An SOT (special occupational taxpayer) license would allow you to handle or build them depending on which you had, along with an FFL (federal firearms license [dealer license]).

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    This isn't entirely true. Our gun laws are weird as fuck, and half of them seem designed to get around some sort of loophole or another.

    To any reasonable person, a 10.5" AR-15 that looks like this:

    is an assault rifle. Per US gun laws, it's a perfectly legal "pistol."

    In dozens of states including my own, you can freely purchase and own one without any sort of permit whatsoever, you just buy it.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    The ar-15 is not an assault rifle. Regardless of how much cosmetic crap you throw on it, it's semi auto. Not burst fire or full auto. It's no more deadly than any number of wood stock semi auto hunting rifles.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    The ar-15 is not an assault rifle. Regardless of how much cosmetic crap you throw on it, it’s semi auto. Not burst fire or full auto. It’s no more deadly than any number of wood stock semi auto hunting rifles.

    It does most of what an assault rifle does and the part it doesn't do is rarely used in combat because it burns through ammo too fast. So an ar-15 is for all practical purposes pretty much the same thing that soldiers use in combat and whether or not it can do full-auto is nearly irrelevant. A wood stock semi auto hunting rifle typically won't be as efficient as an ar-15 in either handling or ammo capacity for a shooter to very easily kill lots of people.

    I say this in a neutral manner, not claiming that these weapons should be banned or not, which is a philosophical question. Yes, "assault rifle" is used loosely by anti-gun people to scare but it's also a term used narrowly by pro-gun people to defend their right to own weapons that are clearly capable of military combat and killing large numbers of people fast.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Completely agree with your points. I own several AR-15s (that I refer to as assault rifles in long form and AR in short form) and even battle rifles and if you even walk into any gun store they would call them AR. Which they’d say means armalite rifle, except that it’s a brand name… so it would certainly seem they’re either saying Kleenex, or it’s referring to something with a more common name… just gun people think anyone saying “assault rifle” isn’t in the know or is looking to take their guns. Which is stupid.

    Common parlance is changing and it’s very simple.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    The ar-15 isn't a military rifle. The m-16 is. The m-16 supports burst fire and full auto, the ar-15 does not. That's what makes it an assault rifle. You're probably confusing "assault rifle" with "assault weapon", which was defined as a semi auto rifle that looks scary. This was on purpose so the Democrats could say "see? We're doing something"

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    The m-16 supports burst fire and full auto, the ar-15 does not.

    This is apparently the only significant difference between the two, and at least full auto is rarely used by regular soldiers from what I found from multiple sources. I'm not sure about burst fire, but I imagine that it's also used in a minority of cases. I looked all of this up except burst fire before making my previous reply. I'm not confusing them, I'm making the specific point that ar-15 are for the most part the same as m-16.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Burst fire/full auto is what makes it an assault rifle. Whether we should ban the ar-15 is a separate conversation. My point is if you have strong opinions about something you should know what you're talking about about and use proper terminology. You're wrong when you call the ar-15 an assault rifle. That's not good for your argument. It makes you easy to ignore.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I may not have been very clear. I'm not arguing that it is or isn't an "assault rifle". I don't care what it's named. My point is that an AR15 is at its most essential function (high-capacity semi-auto rifle) the same as a military weapon. Like I said, I'm not making a judgement on whether everyone should be allowed to own military weapons or not. I'm just pointing out that that's what it is.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    It's not a military weapon. It's a civilian weapon that is shaped like a military weapon. Nobody in the military is carrying an ar-15.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Nice reddit threads. Now check out the US Army's official definition of "assault rifle"

    The U.S. Army defines assault rifles as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges." In this strict definition, a firearm must have at least the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle:

    It must be capable of selective fire. It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle; examples of intermediate cartridges are the 7.92×33mm Kurz, the 7.62×39mm and 5.56×45mm NATO. Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable box magazine.[5] It must have an effective range of at least 300 metres (330 yards).

    Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are not assault rifles according to the U.S. Army's definition. For example:

    Select-fire rifles such as the FN FAL, M14, and H&K G3 main battle rifles are not assault rifles; they fire full-powered rifle cartridges. Semi-automatic-only rifles like the Colt AR-15 are not assault rifles; they do not have select-fire capabilities. Semi-automatic-only rifles with fixed magazines like the SKS are not assault rifles; they do not have detachable box magazines and are not capable of automatic fire.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago

    I had already said I don't care if it's called an "assault rifle" or not, so your last reply is beside the point. I've already explained that the point is that they are essentially military weapons that are sold to civilians. The two reddit threads were to reinforce my points. They explain that a) the AR15 was designed for military use and b) regular US military is generally trained not to use full-auto.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    I don't think the license itself is the expensive part, the guns are (because they have to be old enough to be a collector's item to be legal for civilian ownership even with the right paperwork)

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