Then it's not a "military assault weapon". It's a semiautomatic rifle which in the close quarters of a club has little functional difference from a semiautomatic pistol with a long clip -- and almost all handguns these days are semiautomatics, with the exception of revolvers which are still used a lot at higher calibers. Yes, of course it's designed for killing, that's what all firearms were designed for -- or at least for shooting at targets with something that could easily kill people. But outlawing something like that is basically either saying "really, let's outlaw everything that isn't able to shoot more than once between black-powder reloads" or "let's outlaw this one because it looks scarier than the other".
Even restricting number of rounds to, say, 6-8 is silly. It's really not hard to eject one magazine and slam in another. Takes a couple seconds. This guy did this quite a few times during his spree, and no one took the opportunity to rush him. I doubt seriously that him having to do it a bit more frequently would've made any difference; the people under attack have to (A) recognize he's just run out, and (B) act on that recognition within the few seconds they have.
OR they could just rush him and take him down, like the passengers on Flight 93 did. Yes, he'd shoot some of them. But one man against a mob is ALWAYS a losing proposition for the one man.
Another guy, armed with a firearm, might have been able to take him down, but this was in a club that serves alcohol, and as such it's already illegal for anyone to be carrying firearms inside (guns and booze being a known bad combination).
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Date: 2016-06-14 01:21 pm (UTC)Even restricting number of rounds to, say, 6-8 is silly. It's really not hard to eject one magazine and slam in another. Takes a couple seconds. This guy did this quite a few times during his spree, and no one took the opportunity to rush him. I doubt seriously that him having to do it a bit more frequently would've made any difference; the people under attack have to (A) recognize he's just run out, and (B) act on that recognition within the few seconds they have.
OR they could just rush him and take him down, like the passengers on Flight 93 did. Yes, he'd shoot some of them. But one man against a mob is ALWAYS a losing proposition for the one man.
Another guy, armed with a firearm, might have been able to take him down, but this was in a club that serves alcohol, and as such it's already illegal for anyone to be carrying firearms inside (guns and booze being a known bad combination).