TomAiello

CHL: Concealed Handgun License CCW: Concealed Carry Weapons These are both terms used (in different jurisdictions) to describe the license issued to a private person to allow them to carry a handgun concealed on their person in public. SBR: Short Barreled Rifle, a rifle with a barrel length shorter than 16" SBS: Short Barreled Shotgun, a shotgun with a barrel length shorter than 18" -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'll call bullshit on that. Government intervention gave us the current economic condition. Look at all the non-market or anti-market actors involved in getting us here. There's virtually a rotating door between the highest levels of government and the highest levels of business, and the tentacles of government are all over the businesses. The guys who run the top end of the financial sector seem to rotate between wall street and DC, depending on which party is in the White House. When a democrat is president, the republican financiers are running wall street and the democrats are at the Treasury department. Elect a republican president, and they swap places. The problem is not too little government action. It's _too much_. We've essentially given the power of government and law making (actually administrative rule making, but there's not much functional difference) to business people. That's stupid. Of course they're going to use it to maximize profits. The way out of this is not to give them _more_ government power and _more_ taxpayer dollars. It's to cut the umbilical cord and make them actually work at their businesses, instead of just using their cozy government contacts to circumvent the markets. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

"It works" is pretty relative. What does it work for? Putting a lot of bullets in the air? In order to hurt people, the shooter has to aim the bullets. I'm curious if you've ever bump fired a rifle? How was your accuracy? Personally, I've found that in terms of getting within a few feet of the target, even at close range, shooting every few seconds is far, far more effective than bump firing. It's just really hard to aim at all when you're bump firing. I'm a lot more afraid of a guy who looks through the sites and shoots at specific things than a guy who randomly sprays bullets in my general direction. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Seriously, though, I think the cops have so many advantages that cutting down the mag size available to every citizen is too draconian a measure. It's simply not the case that saving one potential life is worth any amount of restriction in liberty. The question is how much restriction in liberty is one saved life worth? Obviously, we're coming to different conclusions on that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I dunno. Let's ask AggieDave--he's a cop. When a criminal gets into a shootout with police, I'm counting on the police to have so many other advantages (body armor, tactics, air support, numbers, training, etc, etc, etc) that I'm not willing to restrict the rights of the entire citizenry just to give them one more small uptick. Besides, if the cops have fully automatic weapons, then SALVO says they should be wiping the floor with the bad guy, regardless of his mag capacity. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't think the SALVO data applies here. It was basically concerned with military firefights, most of the, taking place at rifle range, and in this context we're talking about a criminal picking off civilians at conversational distances. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I heard that he was already on board the Bainbridge "negotiating" which may actually mean (again, implied in a news story) that he had already surrendered. Honestly, I can't imagine what you'd have to believe about your own bravado to stay in that situation. Let's see--we're adrift in a lifeboat, we've got AK-47's and we're surrounded by warships and probably have a SEAL team swimming underneath us...I'd have surrendered pretty quickly if I was in their shoes. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think the commerce clause would still govern, actually, and give the feds regulatory power over interstate food shipments. That said, I don't think it would be a big deal. The market has a way of working that stuff out--and besides I'm one of those "buy organic and local" hippy types, anyway. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Where have you seen one? I've found aluminum tri-rails, and a separate top rail, but I'd prefer a one piece quad rail. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't mind the grip. I agree on the indicators, but I think they wanted something that could get into the restrictive markets, and some of them require the chamber indicator. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It looks a lot like mine, except I've got a folding stock and a forward grip. Oh, and HK style sights How do you like the MD20? Mine has been flawless since I got it (but that's only been about a month now). Dave, I've been thinking of an irondot for mine for a while. As an aside, what do you not like about the XD? I don't have one, but I've been looking at them, and I'd be curious to hear your views. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Which is why I'm in favor. More open competition between the states is likely to result in some enclaves of greater freedom developing in places like Idaho, Montana or Alaska. I'm sure it will also mean places of lesser freedom, too, but competition is good, and I'm confident that freedom will win out for most people eventually. Even if it doesn't, I can always watch and see where things look most free, and then move there. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Anyone besides me think that the official story about what happened sounds a bit far fetched? "Well, we saw that one of them was pointing a gun at the hostage, so we had snipers from the ship a thousand yards away pick them off, even though they were all inside a totally enclosed lifeboat." I've got no problem with not revealing the methodology. I just think that it's more likely that it involved scuba gear and infrared sensors than the three snipers shooting into an enclosed container. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I propose a new internet arguing rule, in which the first person to post: "It's Bush's fault!" either; (a) automatically loses the argument, or; (b) automatically gets a job with the white house press office. Perhaps we ought to add (c) automatically becomes President of the United States Honestly, before the election I was a lot more impressed with Barack Obama than I am today. He really seems like a pretty straight up guy, and I find all the whining that it's Bush's fault to be very off putting. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Or "Ohio--we decide who's President, the rest of you only think your vote matters." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That argument cuts both ways. From one side: you only want people with lots of training to be dangerous. The average meth head who picks up a gun will be less effective, and that's the goal. You can't stop a SEAL from being very dangerous--even if you restrict him to emory boards. From the other side: firearms are supposed to equalize the difference between the average citizen and a better trained aggressor. Making a wider array of weapons available to the average person makes them more equal to a much faster/better trained/stronger aggressor. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Viewed from the other side, there are millions of "cheaters" out there who have added a flash suppressor to a 14.5" barrel to skirt the law. I own a couple of them. This sort of nitpicking is a perfect example of why the short barrel category ought to be eliminated from the NFA registration requirements. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Isn't that nice. You must be a special warm-hearted person. I'd say so. His favorite shooting experience was making someone smile. How on earth can that make him a bad person? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Quite the contrary, usually, because there is no such thing as an accidental pregnancy in a homosexual relationship. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No. Currently, gun ownership requires neither a license nor registration. Owning a firearm requires a "license" (typically called an "owner's ID" or similar) in a very few states. Purchasing a new firearm from a dealer requires a background check. The only firearms that currently require registration are: 1) A few state specific registries (some states maintain registries of grandfathered weapons that are now banned from sale in that state) 2) NFA (National Firearms Act of 1934) weapons are on a national registry. These require a $200 tax stamp at registry or re-registry (moving between states or transfering to a new owner). These include: (a) Machine Guns (no new machine guns have been allowed to be registered since 1989, and prices are now insanely high as a result) (b) Suppressors (devices to reduce the noise signature of a weapon discharge) (c) Short barrel shotguns and rifles (with barrels shorter than 16") (d) Destructive Devices (this is generally things like grenade launchers, but can include pretty much anything the ATF decides to classify in there) (e) AOW (Any Other Weapon): this is a "grab bag" category for innovative or unusual weapons the ATF wants to include in this category, and only requires a nominal ($5) registration fee, rather than the normal $200. An example of this is the Serbu Super Shorty, which is essentially a pistol shotgun (although other pistol grip shotguns on the market have not been classified as AOW, so it's a little fuzzy as to what is or is not included until the ATF rules or changes a ruling). I'm sure I made some mistakes there that John Rich can correct. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

-- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Do you have references to any of these? I pulled them off a pro-gun website, but it appears the original source is the LA Times, toward the end of this article. I found it by pasting the quotes into Google to look for original sources. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Can you give a few names? See post #8 in this thread. You live in California, don't you? Here are some of your local lawmakers: Assemblyman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica): "'Why don't we just collect all the damn things and melt them down?" Assembly Democratic Floor Leader Kevin Shelley of San Franciscol: "I, too, would like to see guns banned. . . . I can even vote that way and still win reelection. But the vast majority of lawmakers cannot, so we vote on measures now that we can. And then we move society along." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't think so. There are many leading US politicians who are on the public record stating that they view various gun control measures as only a first step, or a partial solution, and that their personal end goal is the removal of all firearms from civilian hands. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The Federal Government, with Medicare and Medicaid covering over 80 million people in total. So you mean that our current system, where the evil insurance companies are defrauding us all, is actually a system where the government is defrauding us all? Clearly, we need socialized medicine! If we could just make the biggest of the evil insurers even bigger, and give it legally enforced monopoly power (or rather, even more than it has now), that will surely fix everything. A little causes problems? Surely more will fix it! I think that's the same strategy our government has for borrowing, too, isn't it? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com