{"id":19809,"date":"2011-01-10T22:19:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T05:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=19809"},"modified":"2011-01-15T14:16:13","modified_gmt":"2011-01-15T21:16:13","slug":"guns-guns-guns-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/10\/guns-guns-guns-guns.html","title":{"rendered":"Guns, guns, guns, guns …"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Loughner's gun, from his Facebook page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Frank Schaeffer points out<\/a>, the tragedy of the Tucson Massacre is not just about political rhetoric, or Left vs Right, or cute little cross-hairs surveyor’s symbols on political hit lists.<\/p>\n

It’s about guns.<\/p>\n

When the Founders wrote the Second Amendment, the guns they knew about were flintlock pistols and rifles. \u00a0A British Brown Bess, one of the best rifles of the Revolutionary Era, had a firing rate of, oh, one shot per 20 seconds or so (15 seconds for highly trained troops).<\/p>\n

In the video below is someone firing a Glock 19, the kind of pistol that Jared Lee Loughner used<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

You’ll notice how quickly and efficiently the Glock 19 fires. You’ll also note the very large magazine. That’s an extended magazine that carries (in this case) 33 rounds of 9mm ammo. Plus one in the chamber, if you are so inclined.<\/p>\n

Loughner apparently had a 30 round extended magazine, which was why he was able to shoot so many people so quickly, firing off all 31 rounds in about 15 seconds.<\/p>\n

He also had another 30 round clip<\/del> magazine<\/em>, plus two “standard” 15-round clip<\/del>\u00a0magazine<\/em> on him. He was tackled while reloading.<\/p>\n

People think of someone carrying a pistol like a Police .38 — 6 rounds in a cylinder. \u00a0Or perhaps 7 rounds in a .45 clip.<\/p>\n

The Glock 19 carries 15 rounds in its normal capacity, and, as noted, twice that with the expanded cartridge<\/del> magazine<\/em> (illegal in a couple of states, but quite available in Arizona).<\/p>\n

31 rounds in 15 seconds. Someone better trained can do it in half that time.<\/p>\n

20 people shot. \u00a06 of them fatally<\/a> — in detail<\/a> “a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, Giffords\u2019s 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked.”<\/p>\n

This is not “protecting yourself from burglars.”<\/p>\n

This is not “safeguarding our tradition of game hunting.”<\/p>\n

This is not “a well-regulated militia.”<\/p>\n

There are gray areas one can argue about in all of those, when discussing gun control. \u00a0But it’s difficult to understand how someone can argue the social value of someone being able to legally and easily purchase a weapon that can throw out 31 rounds in 10-15 seconds. \u00a0That can be (legally) carried concealed (though with difficulty, with the longer clip<\/del> magazine<\/em>). \u00a0That someone who was rejected from the military for drug use can purchase with no problem.<\/p>\n

Unless you’re a flack for the NRA, what sane argument can you give for allowing that kind of a weapon — something orders of magnitude more deadly than the Founders ever envisioned* — to be out on the street in civilian hands? \u00a0Including in the hands of a nutjob like Jared Lee Loughner?<\/p>\n

*I’d be fascinated to hear what an “Constitutional Originalist” like Justice Scalia would make of the proposition that the Founders only envisioned weapons being in civilian hands that could throw out four rounds a minute, and thus anything that can fire faster than that is not Constitutionally protected.<\/small><\/p>\n

UPDATED<\/strong>: Corrected (as noted) the references to magazines as clips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Frank Schaeffer points out, the tragedy of the Tucson Massacre is not just about political rhetoric, or Left vs Right, or cute little cross-hairs surveyor’s symbols on political hit lists. It’s about guns. When the Founders wrote the Second Amendment, the guns they knew about were flintlock pistols and rifles. \u00a0A British Brown Bess, … Continue reading “Guns, guns, guns, guns …”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Loughners-gun.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32196,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/14\/why-we-cant-have-nice-things-smart-guns-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":19809,"position":0},"title":"Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Smart Guns Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Jan-13 2:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, smart guns with video screens and processors that assist in targeting, tracking, and \"dramatically increasing\" first shot kills.Of course, right now they're only being deployed on very expensive bolt-action civilian hunting rifles and the software still takes a lot of time and patience to master and use.Anyone care\u00a0to guess\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134962,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/06\/guns-and-myth.html","url_meta":{"origin":19809,"position":1},"title":"Guns and Myth","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Oct-17 2:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Even as the number of gun owners (and hunters) declines in the US, guns continue to be a hot commodity, with a small fraction of the population buying up ever-increasing weapons for ... well, for all sorts of reasons, including some ever-escalating fear-mongering from the unofficial lobbyists for the gun\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/unnamed-4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":134800,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/20\/world-needs-american-guns.html","url_meta":{"origin":19809,"position":2},"title":"Because the world NEEDS more American guns","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 20-Sep-17 6:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"American gun manufacturers are in trouble. Ironically, with the departure of Barack Obama from the White House, the gun-buying frenzy whipped up by the NRA and its allies (\"He's coming to take your guns! He's coming to shut down gun stores! Buy all you can NOW!\") has subsided, leading to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/guns-and-flag.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31873,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/20\/on-assault-rifles-and-magazines.html","url_meta":{"origin":19809,"position":3},"title":"On "Assault Rifles" and Magazines","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Dec-12 11:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"And by \"magazines\" here I mean the things that hold the bullets that are slid into the gun. Which are not \"clips\", as any two or three dozen people will tell you in comments if you get it wrong.Anyway, the author\u00a0echoes a point I made the other day, that the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130459,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/19\/keeping-up-with-the-sheriff-joneses.html","url_meta":{"origin":19809,"position":4},"title":"Keeping up with the Sheriff Joneses","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Apr-16 9:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I live due north of the Douglas County School District, and am very much unaware of any of any incidents there that have been a greater problem because district security didn't have long guns.And, in fact, there have been no such incidents. The director of district security just seems to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129480,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/13\/guns-and-politics.html","url_meta":{"origin":19809,"position":5},"title":"Guns and Politics","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Jan-16 8:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So ... an interesting correlation between state political leaning and state rate of gun deaths per capita. Mapping Gun Deaths by US States' Political Leanings (2) By analyzing publicly available data on political contributions, Crowdpac's algorithm calculates objective political ideology scores for candidates, donors, organizations... View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}