politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I think that realistically the push back is because the full auto ban undermines a lot of their rhetoric.
After high profile mass shootings such as the Saint Valentines Day Massacre -- which includes the kind of photo you'll never see on a Wikipedia page about Sandy Hook or Ulvade -- killed 7 people, fully automatic weapons were deemed an unacceptable public risk without stricter regulations.
Like you say, they have functionally zero redeeming qualities and are far more useful to criminals than to "responsible gun owners". The laws have stood for a long time, the sky hasn't fallen and full auto weapons aren't turning up in mass shootings or organised crime. The regulations worked and they weren't even an outright ban.
But now people are asking why we can't do the same thing, for the same reasons, with semi-automatic weapons and the pro-gun community desperately doesn't want that for various self-aggrandizing, baseless reasons.
They know that "some weapons should be more tightly regulated because of the risk they pose to the public but not these ones" is a much weaker position than "no weapons should ever been regulated", so they opt for the latter.
If they actually succeeded, we would absolutely see those weapons used to create higher levels of violence, but the pro-gun community is fine with sacrificing more innocent lives for their hobby, especially if they get 2 seconds of fun at the range.