You can make a fairly compelling argument that civilian possession of combat rifles deters tyrannical behavior from the state. Obviously they don't really give civilians the ability to defeat the military in a toe-to-toe confrontation, but their proliferation significantly increases the danger to state forces attempting to carry out house-to-house brutality like the US military did in Iraq.

But regardless this is all hypothetical because the huge gigantic uncomfortable fact at the center of this debate is this; justified or not you can't do anything about guns in America. Our constitution is dogshit and is basically impossible to change without near unanimous consent that is never gonna exist in our lifetimes. The SCOTUS has a super conservative majority and the supposed opposition to that steadfastly refuses to reform the court. Gun laws are only gonna get more lenient in the immediate future.

Also the hollow point bullets used in the AR-15 serve a different purpose from the hollow point bullets used in handguns. The AR-15 is designed to shoot a very lightweight, fast-moving bullet that is barely stabilized. There is a hollow cavity left in the front of the copper jacket of the bullet that is intended to crumple on impact and initiate a tumbling motion. This allows such a small and light bullet to cause the same damage as the much heavier rifles it replaced. A hollow point in a handgun is different because the hollow point is intended to expand the bullet, which increases the size of the wound and slows the bullet down, dumping kinetic energy into the target and preventing over-penetration.

You sound like you hate American Freedom (tm)

@cs

Hollow point ammunition is considered a war crime and such the military doesn’t use them.

***** for evil.

And yep, fucktards who love to die and kill are what this country's made of (per a state by state majority, but not at all a population majority)

Make the sale and ownership of guns of any kind a state law issue. I wish the supreme court would be cut down in their influence significantly. They are a non-democratic institution.

I just won't live in a battleground state, thank you. Enjoy killing each other with your weapons of war and 'deterring' the government (yeah right. Your AR-15 will do a whole lot against a switchblade drone.)

Gun fucktards just go cross state lines for their massacres.

There's zero reason for civilian gun ownership beyond the most basic of hunting gear. Ban the useless things nationally. The only thing we'd be giving up is the self esteem security blanket for fat needle dick militia dorks (cosplaying as Minutemen at best, actively seeking to intimidate and kill at worst).

Expanding bullets violate the Hague convention, not all hollow points. That's why I made the distinction. That said, the US military primarily uses hard-point "penetrator" 5.56mm ammo because of it's improved performance against body armor and vehicles.

The next gun case that the SCOTUS takes up will essentially remove the ability of cities like Chicago and NYC to ban all private citizens from keeping handguns in their homes. Before the end of the Biden administration they will probably do away with restrictions on concealed carry and automatic weapons as well. Allowing the SCOTUS to do this is a policy choice made by the Democrats currently in charge of the federal government.

naturally I 100% agree with that, and do not think humans need massacre capable weaponry at all, unless it's part of their job to have it, but I sadly know Crackersmack speaks truths here and that there isn't likely to be a federal legislative solution in this stupid country. a state law approach may be helpful because this fucknut literally bought his gun and then went straight to rampage with it. I know some massacres likely did involve crossing state lines, such as the recent Buffalo shooting, but we know some things after studying the hundreds of massacres every year in this country:

1.) People often shoot up their own place of work, school, and other areas personal to them.
2.) The more barriers that exist to owning assault weapons, the less overall deaths from gun massacres occur, and
3.) we won't get a lofty goal met that quickly as you suggest, and we don't want to do NOTHING. Leaving it as a states law argument will be a way to simultaneously appease gun-nut states and may actually be feasible therefore.

Mass shootings account for a small percentage of gun deaths (less than 1%). And although ARs are more deadly than pistols (mostly it's easier to aim) getting rid of them entirely would only make mass shootings like 25% less deadly (see: VA Tech). Banning "assault weapons" wouldn't meaningfully affect gun homicide numbers. It would maybe reduce gun deaths by like 0.01%.

Which is not to say that it's not worth doing, just that the picture of gun deaths in public discourse is highly distorted, and highest ROI in terms of lives saved for political capital spent isn't here.

The most common gun used in murders is a .22lr revolver, because they are cheap.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2021/05/31/thinking-of-not- wearing-a-motorcycle-helmet-think-again/?sh=5e1d9a81301b

about 700 people a year die from not having motorcycle helmet laws nation wide

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data -says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

between 38 and 513 people died in 2020 from mass shootings, depending on the definition

I just wanted to remind anyone defending owning non-hunting guns that they're an insecure needle dick pussy.

@ashtar. "Mass shootings account for a small percentage of gun deaths (less than 1%)."

What is the proportion of gun deaths of children in the age of 6-8 are included in that less than 1%?

I’d guess the number of kids killed by the family protection gun every year is higher than school shooting deaths.

Mass shootings were very rare before the 1990s despite gun ownership percentages being basically the same. AR-15s have been sold retail since the mid 1960s. In the 1950s you could order military surplus semiautomatic rifles and handguns through the mail direct to your home, for next to nothing. The NRA famously sold WW2 1911 handguns for $25 shipped. Americans have had easy access to military grade weapons for a very long time and haven't been using them to shoot up schools, until our lifetimes.

What changed to make mass shootings more common? imho your average American is under much more stress now, and has been for decades. Basically everybody that isn't somewhat wealthy has housing/food/healthcare instability to some degree. Social mobility is less possible than ever before. You're right about the long-term damage of schools having to be turned into bunkers because it's compounded with the long-term, multigenerational damage of the intense poverty that is imposed on the lower third of the economy through policy choices. For the huge numbers of poor kids this bunkerization of everything in their lives will make the school-to-prison transition that much smoother, and it's hard to look at the policy imposed on us and come away believing that this isn't a goal of a lot of the people involved.

If you take a body of people this large and fuck with it this hard you are gonna end up with some really damaged people lashing out in really horrific ways. And we aren't moving in the direction of reducing this either. The reaction to this tragedy by our government will be to praise the police more, to fund the police more. Instead of spending 40% of the town budget on cops Uvalde will spend 60% or 80%. The addiction to cops will prevent the other damage to society from being addressed.