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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Pretty funny that this dude posted a novel about “logic” in this thread when the only reason they want an AR-15 is for emotional reasons. There’s plenty of other “tools” that do the job of hunting and home defense, with lower risk to the public. [/quote]

Some respondents here are mixing together various previous posters. I’m the PP who was talking about the political numbers game and cost/benefit analysis from a policy perspective.

Others were talking about “cavitation” etc. and approaching a conversation from a “pro gun” point of view.

I don’t own or want an Armalite pattern rifle. If I thought I wanted a rifle I wouldn’t get one of those, but just because I don’t care for the gauche plastic and aluminum. I’d opt for something older from the early 1900s with a wood stock.

A ton of people in the US did buy millions of the ARs in 2020 when they thought the political winds were shifting on the matter and they might become restricted, but that’s the point of what I’m saying here. From a political numbers game, it’s never going to happen. And the data I’ve looked at seems to indicate the vast majority of buyers were new, first-time buyers. It’s a loser topic from a poli sci perspective.

From more of an economist’s cost/benefit view, I was simply saying that 25m rifles times $1000 buy-back money divided by perhaps 200 deaths/year caused by Armalite design guns equals $125,000,000 per life saved.

And that’s if it played out that way, which of course it wouldn’t.  The compliance rate would be low, the law enforcement injury rate would be high, the opportunity cost of diverting officers to taking back or seizing relatively low-death rate instruments would be highly unfavorable, and the effectiveness would be pretty much non-existent for what is becoming an increasingly homemade weapon.  And then there’s the opportunity cost of thinking you’re going to save the lives of maybe 200 AR homicide victims per year at such public expense.  It would possibly be one of the most bone-headed moves mathematically ever made by government, from the perspective of someone who loves people, and wants people to live long and happy lives. And I say that because of the lost opportunity cost of not targeting those societal resources toward much more significant and *solvable* problems.

So I apologize if that sounds like I’m thinking about the topic illogically or emotionally, because it’s the emotionality I’m trying to lobby against.  There are people here saying they don’t want to understand the gun-specific technicalities of the conversation about firearms but then they still expect their POV to be valid, and in my book it just doesn’t work that way.  That’s like being concerned about climate change but then turning around and referring to the puffy white things floating through the sky as icebergs.

Maybe that’s what separates me as a classic 1900s-style Liberal from the new Progressives, but if Progressive means illogical and illiterate on a weighty topic, I’ll stick with liberalism.  
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In order to use the weapons you need ammunition. [/quote]

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