6 ms·

You judge them as not acting in good faith, and impute their endgame in the very same sentence.

PoignardAzur 5y ago
I'm genuinely trying to act in good faith. That doesn't mean I should take a stakeholder's arguments at face value. If a journal took a massive donation from Facebook, and subsequently published an article about how Facebook's business practice are perfectly legitimate and consumer-friendly, people on HN would be justifiably skeptical of the journal's endgame, and of its intellectual honesty. As far as I'm aware (I'm open to being proven wrong), gun lobbies in the US want no restriction on the ownership of firearms, period. Any argument used against a particular firearm legislation has to be considered within the context that it's strictly a tool to achieve that "no gun restrictions" goal; if the argument is addressed, gun lobbies will simply come up with another argument. That doesn't mean the arguments shouldn't be considered on their own merits. And honestly... I don't think they're very good on that front either? Maybe an "assault rifle" is a fuzzy concept. But, leaving aside legal complexities, from a purely utilitarian point of view, I don't think that really matters. Like, this seems a lot more controversial than I'd expect, but... people don't need assault rifles. People don't need "a weapon platform that allows for massive customization", to quote someone else in the thread. People don't need assault rifle parts that have been rebranded using technicalities so you can use them to build an assault rifle using other rebranded parts. If all you need is to defend yourself, a handgun is fine. Unless you're planning a school shooting or to invade a foreign country, I have no idea what you could possibly use an assault rifle for. So, while I get that the law has loopholes and that's bad, using these loopholes to repeal the law seems like playing the part of Nicolas Cage in Lord of War in that scene where he says "No, see, it's perfectly legal for me to sell these assault helicopters to a 3rd-world dictatorship. I've bolted the missile attachments off and now they're humanitarian helicopters!" while he sells the missile attachments separately. Maybe it's true bureaucratically, but I can't see how this is at all defensible from a common-sense perspective. (that's, of course, my point of view as a non-american who thinks this whole 2nd Amendment thing is kind of silly and overrated, but that's another argument)
- crowf 5y ago
  > As far as I'm aware (I'm open to being proven wrong), gun lobbies in the US want no restriction on the ownership of firearms, period. A few notable examples of regulations that many pro gun lobbyist like are bans on machine guns, Short-barreled rifles and shotguns. [0] After the Los Vegas shooting many pro gun organization pushes for banning bump stocks [1] Many of those organizations want to take away the right to any firearm from felons. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_stock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_stock

I'm genuinely trying to act in good faith. That doesn't mean I should take a stakeholder's arguments at face value. If a journal took a massive donation from Facebook, and subsequently published an article about how Facebook's business practice are perfectly legitimate and consumer-friendly, people on HN would be justifiably skeptical of the journal's endgame, and of its intellectual honesty. As far as I'm aware (I'm open to being proven wrong), gun lobbies in the US want no restriction on the ownership of firearms, period. Any argument used against a particular firearm legislation has to be considered within the context that it's strictly a tool to achieve that "no gun restrictions" goal; if the argument is addressed, gun lobbies will simply come up with another argument. That doesn't mean the arguments shouldn't be considered on their own merits. And honestly... I don't think they're very good on that front either? Maybe an "assault rifle" is a fuzzy concept. But, leaving aside legal complexities, from a purely utilitarian point of view, I don't think that really matters. Like, this seems a lot more controversial than I'd expect, but... people don't need assault rifles. People don't need "a weapon platform that allows for massive customization", to quote someone else in the thread. People don't need assault rifle parts that have been rebranded using technicalities so you can use them to build an assault rifle using other rebranded parts. If all you need is to defend yourself, a handgun is fine. Unless you're planning a school shooting or to invade a foreign country, I have no idea what you could possibly use an assault rifle for. So, while I get that the law has loopholes and that's bad, using these loopholes to repeal the law seems like playing the part of Nicolas Cage in Lord of War in that scene where he says "No, see, it's perfectly legal for me to sell these assault helicopters to a 3rd-world dictatorship. I've bolted the missile attachments off and now they're humanitarian helicopters!" while he sells the missile attachments separately. Maybe it's true bureaucratically, but I can't see how this is at all defensible from a common-sense perspective. (that's, of course, my point of view as a non-american who thinks this whole 2nd Amendment thing is kind of silly and overrated, but that's another argument)

crowf 5y ago
> As far as I'm aware (I'm open to being proven wrong), gun lobbies in the US want no restriction on the ownership of firearms, period. A few notable examples of regulations that many pro gun lobbyist like are bans on machine guns, Short-barreled rifles and shotguns. [0] After the Los Vegas shooting many pro gun organization pushes for banning bump stocks [1] Many of those organizations want to take away the right to any firearm from felons. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_stock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_stock