Guns: how much longer will it take ....

I think the point being made is that it's impossible (near-impossible?) to take aimed shots with a rifle using the fully automatic mode...therefore making an AR15 more deadly than an M16 firing in full auto mode.

I think the point being made is that it's impossible (near-impossible?) to take aimed shots with a rifle using the fully automatic mode...therefore making an AR15 more deadly than an M16 firing in full auto mode.

Are you trying to make the argument that round size, muzzle velocity, recoil, magazine size, etc are all just cosmetic and offer no 'lethal-advantage' from one semi-automatic firearm to the next?

And once again your filtering proves my point.

Are you trying to make the argument that all semi-automatic weapons are identical in terms of potential lethality?

That all semi-automatic weapons are identical except for cosmetic features?

Are you trying to make the argument that round size, muzzle velocity, recoil, magazine size, etc are all just cosmetic and offer no 'lethal-advantage' from one semi-automatic firearm to the next?

Certainly as "it's the person" is true, so is it "the weapon" to some degree, right?

I reject the notion that reality is whatever people want it to be.

Well, I never said that. I said it's subjective, which is rather different from 'whatever they want it to be'.

The irony is that you are making your reality what you want it to be - a place with no subjectiveness. A place where truth is absolute - a place where what you want, exists. But this only exists in your world because you convince yourself of it.

Cotton's assertion reflects a common and romanticized argument by the gun lobby. If we were all armed, we would all be safe, an argument as devoid of humanity as it is of logic.

the Violence Policy Center released a fresh analysis of federal crime and health data that explores how often potential victims actually turned the tables. Parsing 2012 numbers, the center counted 259 justifiable gun-related homicides, or incidents in which authorities ruled that killings occurred in self-defense.

That's in a nation in which there are some 300 million firearms, nearly one for every person. This is also a nation in which, in 2012, there were 1.2 million violent crimes, defined as murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Or, put another way, 1.2 million scenarios in which there was potential for someone to kill in self-defense.

Match those 259 justifiable homicides with the theft of about 232,000 guns each year, about 172,000 of them during burglaries. That's a ratio of one justifiable homicide for every 896 guns put in the hands of criminals.

Those 259 justifiable homicides also pale compared with, in the same year, 8,342 criminal homicides using guns, 20,666 suicides with guns, and 548 fatal unintentional shootings, according to the FBI's Supplemental Homicide Report.

the Violence Policy Center also dives into the thorny thicket of how often the presence of a gun stops a crime — either violent or against property, such as a burglary — from happening. The gun lobby trots out an annual figure of 2.5 million such instances. But an analysis of five years' worth of stats collected by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey puts the number much, much lower — about 67,740 times a year.

And those suicides? About half of all suicides are committed with guns, and seven in 10 by men, who also account for 74% of gun owners in the country.
Oddly, given these combined statistics, nearly half of gun owners say they keep weapons because it makes them feel safer, a proportion that has increased dramatically since 1999 even though violent crime has been in a steady decline.

So what conclusions can we draw from this? The notion that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun is a romanticized vision of the nature of violent crime. And that the sea of guns in which we live causes exponentially more danger and harm than good. It's long past time to start emphasizing the "well-regulated" phrase in the 2nd Amendment.

Of course you wouldn't see any difference.

Doing so would undermine you making your reality what you want it to be.

the Violence Policy Center also dives into the thorny thicket of how often the presence of a gun stops a crime — either violent or against property, such as a burglary — from happening. The gun lobby trots out an annual figure of 2.5 million such instances. But an analysis of five years' worth of stats collected by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey puts the number much, much lower — about 67,740 times a year.

It's long past time to start emphasizing the "well-regulated" phrase in the 2nd Amendment.

I am not saying that at all.