Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, October 27, 2023
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72 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Speaker Mike Johnson says if you want to know his world view, pick up the Bible and read it.
First ever Florida Man Games to feature ‘evading arrest’ obstacle course
$45 will get you in. Might even be worth it.
@CSK: Or I can read Mien Kampf.
@CSK: That’s frightening. BTW, I had no idea he was a communist.
@CSK:
Does he prefer the begats or the smites, I wonder?
Or does he prefer to mix the two up a bit?
@CSK: Someone needs to ask him if he enjoys pork or shellfish. Both are prohibited in the Bible as unclean foods.
Of course, he does enjoy those things, because like every Christian he picks and chooses which Biblical edicts apply to him and which don’t. He’ll point to the place in Leviticus that has been mistranslated to proscribe homosexuality, but ignore the place in Leviticus that proscribes eating pork and shellfish.
The alleged shooter in Maine was so mentally troubled and had expressed such violent fantasies that he was involuntarily committed for two weeks this summer. What was not done? Take away his guns. Because Republicans in all states and the national level have been focused like a laser on ensuring that people with mental health problems are not “discriminated” against by having their guns taken away.
Republicans and gun owners as a whole are not rational, mature or reality based. They are dangerous fantasists living in some bizarre world inside their heads and are a danger to us all.
I have read that he stole them from his NG unit’s armory. I don’t know the truth of that. Lots of speculation going on.
@Mikey: Also eating meat and dairy in the same meal or wearing wool and linen at the same time. I’m gonna guess he’s had a cheeseburger before.
@MarkedMan:
Add in there’s a lot of “the government failed to enforce existing laws so new laws won’t help!!” BS. Of course if 2A-above-all types don’t enforce the current gun laws, we’ll see things like this happen. The government is made of human beings after all and quite a few of them a comfortable looking the other way on a lot of gun-related issues they feel sympathetic to. if his guns weren’t taken away, it was because someone decided to not put in the effort.
It’s also sick how they’re appropriating caring about mental illness to excuse enforcing red flag laws. The vast majority of people who have a mental illness or disorder are *not* violent but if their condition hinders impulse control or their sense of reality, the last thing you want is for them to have access to weaponry. Yet for some reason, their right to have access to things that can hurt them and others is paramount over the safety of everyone else. I’ve told the story recently of how I had my wrist broken breaking up a knife fight between two of my clients. The aggressor was immediately extremely sorry but that didn’t change the fact that a snap decision on his part lead to threatening lives and injury. When I secured the knives in the house for the night at the request of the police, I was castigated by my work and written up for violating their civil liberties. That the ability to grab a kitchen knife at 11pm for the hell of it was hindered for a few hours was a crime in their eyes but to hell with the other 5 residents and my fear the situation wasn’t over. I’m wondering if that mentality was present in officials dealing with the Maine shooter: his right to own weaponry superseded all and attempting to intervene would be the true crime in their eyes.
@MarkedMan:
One of the only cases where Republicans are against discrimination. The other case has to do with Christian bakers.
@Tony W: Having once been deeply involved in Evangelical circles, it is amazing the degree to which people like the new Speaker really think that the Bible is inerrant, non-contradictory, and really is essentially an instruction manual.
But, of course, at the same time having no clue about the history of how the book was assembled, and being clueless about how they use modern lenses to try and understand ancient words and customs (not to mention the heapin’ helpin’ of motivated thinking that is applied to conjure the answers that are conjured).
@Steven L. Taylor: I grew up in that world as well. My early days were very formal Episcopalian – bells & smells on Sunday mornings, catechism on Wednesday afternoons, a big pipe organ played by an eccentric/crazy organist, and regular service as an acolyte and in the choir.
We went from there to hands in the air, guitar music, rolling in the aisles, speaking in tongues, the whole shebang. After that experience, I spent the next forty years regaining the atheism I was born with.
At an old job of mine, we did some work for a group of women that made a publication targeting “Titus II Women”. I had trouble reconciling the idea of women speaking out in favor of not letting women speak out.
@OzarkHillbilly: He was a shooting instructor. He may have stolen these guns (I don’t know) but he certainly had all the access he needed
@Steven L. Taylor: Whenever I meet such a person (it isn’t often, we tend to avoid each other) I can’t help asking that if the Bible is the inerrant word of god, how come there are 64 versions of it?
I have on one of my shelves somewhere, the book Misquoting Jesus When the author decided to become a Bible scholar and studied the ancient Greek texts it changed him and his relationship with his god. I read it almost 20 years ago so don’t remember much of the particulars but it’s well written and this atheist was never put off by some of the more theological discussions.
@KM:
Conservative culture is deeply mired in antipsychiatry and some of the most toxic popular misconceptions about the mentally ill, where they view them as either morally degenerate monsters or weak crybabies. It comes out in the way they talk about trans people, the homeless, and their condescending remarks about figures from John Fetterman to Greta Thunberg, where they act like being diagnosed with a mental condition automatically means the person is somehow incapacitated and unable to function.
Their outlook isn’t even coherent. On the one hand, they seem to think the solution is simply to lock the people up, and on the other they typically back reduction in funds and access to mental health care. I think it derives from an unreflective acceptance of lazy, outdated stereotypes, which is why the only time they seem to care about the issue is when they want to use the mentally ill as scapegoats to draw attention away from other problems.
Yeah, I read that too. It’s hard to know what’s really going on with all the breathless Latest Updates getting published every 5 mins. If the reporting is accurate on his mental health problems, at the very least he should have had his keys taken away by his superior officer.
I link to this WAPO story about the RWNJ Fifth Circuit only because the title photo struck me as hilarious. They meet in the “John MINOR WISDOM” courthouse. Apt.
@CSK: You know, I could say that, too. And funnily enough, I have a very different world view than Johnson.
But it’s the move of a Pharisee.
(the best thing about that passage is how it demonstrates that attitudes towards taxes never change.)
@OzarkHillbilly: Indeed, these minute by minute updates distort the news. But I have to wonder, given HIPA, would his superior officer, or anyone else, have even known about his issues?
Mental health is the current rationalization for the gun strokers. I see our new Christofascist House Speaker quoted as saying it’s not the guns, the problem is in the human soul. And while blaming mental health they’re in court trying to guarantee domestic abusers have an absolute 2A right to an arsenal. (SCOTUS painted themselves into a corner and it’s going to be interesting to see if they can find a way out.)
@MarkedMan: You’d think if anyone were a Responsible Gun Owner (TM) a gun instructor would be.
@OzarkHillbilly: Yah, that’s by Bart Ehrman who also has a YouTube channel and podcast where they have weekly discussions about the academic study of the bible, as well as clearing up misconceptions. Another great resource for that is Dan McClellan, who has both a YouTube channel and a podcast (as well as other social media) where he addresses common misconceptions about the bible. Good stuff.
@gVOR10: When I read about the latest shootings here in Maryland, at least half seem to fall into the category of, “Party A thought he needed to carry around a gun to protect himself, and Party B thought the same, they got drunk and got into an argument and then bullets started flying, killing and wounding everyone around.”
Gun fetishists live in the fantasy world of “Gunsmoke”, an imaginary Dodge City where everyone was armed and therefore almost everyone was polite, and when some evil doer did pull a gun there was always a faster drawing hero to put them down and save the day. Of course, in the real Dodge city as soon as it was big enough to have a government (Town Council) they passed a law against carrying weapons inside the city limits and hired a Sheriff and Deputies to rigorously enforce it. They were not stupid enough to believe it was a good idea to have a bunch of drunken cowboys running around town with guns.
I suspect the new speaker has memorized at least three books in whatever version of the bible he reads, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Revelations. He and his ilk are probably loving what is going on in Israel and Gaza right now and passing time waiting for the rapture by irritating the rest of us. Irritating meaning threatening, suppressing and killing us by opposing climate change actions.
I leave this here as @JohnSF: bait:
@MarkedMan:
Maine’s gun politics if IRC are not automatically pro or anti gun as in much of the USA. Why? It’s a Sportsmens state where hunting is still widely practiced.
I almost expressed that view in last ebook but shied away from it* because I wasn’t sure if this view is accurate. One of my sources for it may have been an Almanac of American Politics but which one? I have more than a couple and is that gun politics view still held in that state. Before these shootings.
*- My latest ebook has a minor character, an out lesbian, who gets elected to the Maine State House after defeating a scandal tarred incumbent in the Democratic primary. Most of the ebook is set in Maine also. Unfortunately this book of mine appears to be a financial dud.
@Bill Jempty:
So they should only support owning weapons suitable for hunting, not the kind that shred meat up because they are designed for killing large numbers of people quickly, not hunting. You know, most of the guns 2A supporters swear they need? I’m not opposed to hunting rifles and the like because while deadly, they are not meant to be rapid-fire, blow-apart-the-target. Even heavy hunting gear (for bears and other big game) is not suitable for mass shooting because it’s not a tool of war meant to clear several targets swiftly.
Good question.
Pretty soon Benito will claim he never knew Ivanka and she was never his daughter.
Of course, this may hurt his chances at incest.
@KM: It always cracks me up how misinformed some people are. Hunting rifles fire full sized rounds that are vastly more powerful than an intermediate cartridge that you’re ragging on. Where a 5.56 might poke a neat hole a 30-06 will create a massive wound cavity.
At the end of the day humans are just flesh and meat like all other animals. What kills a big dear or bear kills a human even easier.
You can rapid fire pump shotguns and most hunting rifles. Hell you can rapid fire bolt action rifles. You’re arguing from the perspective of emotion not facts.
That 30-06 hunting round I mentioned earlier? Started off as a replacement round for gatling guns. Most traditional hunting rounds started off designed for military usages.
https://i.imgur.com/4qtFRZg.jpg
To make it perfectly clear before the brigade jumps on me for daring to voice some facts..
The main shooter clearly needed help and the mental health system failed him and everyone else involved. In an ideal world his guns would of been taken away and put in a secure location until treatment was complete. Instead we have a world where liberals use red flag laws to take all the guns they can by abusing the law to the maximum possible. Meanwhile conservatives see all the liberals screaming to ban all guns and assume the worst and oppose “common sense” laws because it’s only the beginning. You don’t have to ban something to make it hard for legal law abiding citizens to follow the law. The games the democrats have played with the ATF demonstrates that handily..
Nothing productive will occur because there’s too much stupidity and emotions involved. Also lots of money which I guess in the end is what really matters as emotions and stupidity can be manipulated by enough money.
Meanwhile the mental health system in the USA is a bad joke and everyone suffers… but hey at least the rich are getting their tax cuts right?!.
@Jay L Gischer: Puts me in mind of the popular t-shirt phrase: “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.”
I always felt like saying, “Just because you’ve forgiven yourself, doesn’t mean god has.”
@Matt: Gun people have convinced me that there is no point in distinguishing between types of guns. Fine. Someone so much as gets in a fist fight, or gets into a heated argument while displaying a gun, or threatens to kill someone, take away their guns forever. And if they are caught with one, lock em the hell up.
Ummmm no. Just no. I own a bolt action rifle, .30-06. Follow up shots at deer here in the hills and hollers? Fuhgedaboudit. Maybe one might get a 2nd shot off with a .270, but I doubt it would be accurate.
Funny, you say this without any mention of caliber or accuracy. I have never shot an AR-15 (why would I?) but I know several veterans and as one said, “If it’s Mattel, it’s swell!” because there is practically no recoil. (about like my 10/22 squirrel gun) Which means it is easy as pie to make a follow up shot with some accuracy. You can’t even think about that with my .30-06.
As far as pump shotguns, load it up with birdshot or buckshot and just pointing it in the right direction is likely to get a hit.
@Matt: “A world where liberals use red flag laws to take all the guns they can…”
What utter bullshit. If you are serious you are astonishingly stupid.
@Matt: And it’s not technically an assault rifle.. And it’s a magazine, not a clip. Who TF cares? Forty or fifty thousand people get shot dead every year. What do you propose we should do about it?
Robert Card left a note saying he didn’t expect to be found alive.
@CSK: So the TL/DR is “All is vanity and striving after the wind?” Good to know, but I’m not sure why he wants to be in government if he believes that. 🙁
@MarkedMan: You are correct the gun itself doesn’t magically make a round more deadly. I totally agree though if you’re the type to pull a gun like that you are NOT the type that should be allowed to have a gun.
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah you’ve never heard of the mad minute? We’re not talking about shots being taken at +200 yards away here..
An AR-15 kicks just as hard as any other gun. What matters is the round you’re firing. If you’re using a .50 upper I guarantee you will feel it just as much as a pure .50 rifle. I’ve shot several AR-15s because they are very good hunting rifles. The ability to switch cartridge size in a matter of minutes is super handy for hunting different game with one platform.
2 seconds with google and the first result.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I5P7qlix-hU
@JohnMc: Gun control is the left’s version of abortion. Facts and reality don’t matter. Only what you want to believe matters. I cannot show you what you do not wish to see.
@gVOR10: Of which less than 1% are shot by an “assault weapon”. If you really wanted to make a dent you’d ban hand guns as they are used in the vast majority of gun related murders. Probably should ban hands and feet too as they rank up there high on the murder weapon of choice.
What would I do? I’d snap my fingers and make liberals stop with the ban everything emotional fearmongering bullshit and while I’m at it I’d snap my fingers again to stop the right’s bullshit fear mongering. Then I’d go about setting up a registration system similar to cars. Licensing proper training required and insurance. All that jazz but you know that still wouldn’t be enough for you as people would still die just as people still die in preventable car accidents because people suck.
Banning everything isn’t even a remote solution these days as people are printing fully automatic guns in their basement with cheap printers. There are already gun manufacturers using 3d printing to produce gun parts for the commercial market. This is only going to get “worse” as new tech allows for cheaper printers and production. I don’t really have the answer for this part of the problem. Right now though you can make an AK with a lathe and some sheet metal..
EDIT : Man the finger snapping got me thinking if I had that power I’d just finger snap everyone into being decent law abiding caring citizens.
@Matt: This is just mental masturbation. The gun fetishists have had control of the gun laws in this country for fifty years and yielded nothing but rivers of blood, drunks running around firing guns at each other in crowds, and suicide after suicide. All the blathering and talk about magazines and bullet sizes is just bullshit. It means nothing and shows you are living in a fantasy world. Gun owners in general have proven over and over that they don’t have the maturity or connection to reality to decide policy. They don’t live in a fact based world but rather in some bizarre sur-reality comprised of equal parts death-nerds, rambo-wannabees and deluded fools who think carrying a gun or keeping one in their homes makes them and their families safer.
Gun nuts have had their chances and given us nothing but tragedy after tragedy.
@MarkedMan: Here we go exactly as I predicted. He’s reached the peak of ‘THEY ARE ABORTING KIDS AS LATE AS TWO YEARS OLD!!!”…
@Mr. Prosser: That’s interesting. I would go toward him not having memorized anything and relying on paraphrases of what he believes he’s been told about what the Bible says. In the modern world evangelicals are more likely to attribute the sayings of Jesus to Marx, Nietzsche, and Camus and vice versa.
Maybe it’s too early to really know, but …
I think ‘Mike Johnson’ is the answer to the question: ‘whom or what could be worse than Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz?’
In this age of Trump Republicanism we now know, or we should know, that things can always get worse.
@Matt:
There is a lot of emotion on this subject, to be sure.
In terms of facts, there is the reality that countries with more gun control policies have far (far, far, far) fewer mass shootings. That is fact that some in our political discourse clearly ignore.
@just nutha: @al Ameda:
Johnson said today that he loves everybody.
@gVOR10: Ironically, John Minor Wisdom was one of the leaders back in the days when the 5th Circuit promoted the cause of civil rights.
@Matt:
So your advice is: ‘Submit to the lunatic world gun nuts have forced on you? Your dead child is merely the price of my freedom to shoot tin cans and fantasize about race wars. My masculine insecurity is more important than your life.’
Do I have that right?
@gVOR10: If there was ever a judge whose actions entitled him to have his name on a federal courthouse Judge Wisdom would be that man. Wisdom, a son of the south from Louisiana sat on the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the late 50’s through the seventies. He was one of the Fifth Circuit Four, which included Judges Elbert Tuttle, John Brown and Richard Rives. All of these four were white descendants of confederate soldiers, yet while the various district judges and state judges were issuing opinions and orders attempting to defeat the decison in Brown vs. Board of Education these four judges were having none of it. They quickly issued orders and opinions affirming civil rights and were true heroes for civil rights. After his retirement Judge Wisdom was given the medal of freedom by President Obama.
Its a sad state of affairs that the Fifth Circuit was once in the forefront of individual liberties has become the right wing cesspool that it is.
@Matt: It’s hard to express just how asinine you sound. It’s like some drunk has just crashed their pickup truck into a schoolbus and what you choose to focus on is whether the truck had four wheel drive or all wheel drive. The gun nuts have been given virtually free rein in this country for decades and have failed. Completely. Tragically. Miserably. The gun nuts have refused to do a single goddamn thing about this and instead made it worse at every turn. Given gross incompetence and zero credibility, their thoughts on gun violence and gun regulation should be completely ignored.
@Matt: “An AR-15 kicks as hard as any other gun…”
The ‘assault rifle’ configuration is a design specifically made to not lift off target with recoil. The 5.56 round was chosen to diminish total recoil and the stock was shaped to not rise. Keeping on target with shotgun, 30-06 or .45 Tommy is impossible.
You are completely ignorant of subject matter. Very bad situation for f-ing troll.
@Matt:
What’s the muzzle velocity of a 30-06 hunting gun, and what is the extent of the cavitation wounds it produces?
@gVOR10: “What do you propose we should do about it?”
He proposes we should blame liberals.
@Michael Reynolds: “So your advice is: ‘Submit to the lunatic world gun nuts have forced on you? Your dead child is merely the price of my freedom to shoot tin cans and fantasize about race wars. My masculine insecurity is more important than your life.’”
Says the man currently advocating the murder of every man, woman and child in Gaza.
@wr:
WTF are you talking about? Show me where I said any such thing. That was Eddie you’re thinking about, and I don’t think that’s what he meant.
@Matt:..The main (sic) shooter clearly needed help and the mental health system failed him and everyone else involved. In an ideal world his guns would of been taken away and put in a secure location until treatment was complete.
Apparently you believe that gun violence is due to a mental health issue with the shooter who possesses the gun. If that is true I would suggest that every gun owner turn in their weapons and submit to a mental health evaluation to determine if they need treatment before they can get their guns back.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… OK. Holy fuck. Are you stupid? You actually think an automatic kicks the same as a bolt action? you are either a complete and utter fucking idiot or a lying sack of shit. Another wannabe “gun expert” who has fired a few guns and read a whole bunch of bullshit written by “experts” and quotes them like lived experience.
MF’er, I may not know all there is to know about assault weapons* these days or what the latest rounds are capable of, but I sure as shit know the difference between shooting a semi auto and a bolt action. And I know that pansy MF’er wannabe tuff guy that you are you couldn’t fire my .30-06 five times in a row. It hurt like hell just sighting it in.
Run along little doggie, you’re running with the big dogs now.
* I’ve never fired one.
ETA 2: JFC, I generally don’t go for insulting folks just because they are idiots but you are making it extremely hard. Stop pretending, I know better. It only gets worse from here.
@CSK: In that case, I have another scripture passage for him to commit to memory: “…all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone…” Revelations 21:8.
(Now I’m not accusing him of being a liar, you unnerstan’. I’m just notin’ that Christians need to be really careful about what they claim ’bout theyse’ves.)
JFC, You’ve never been hunting, have you?
Seriously, you don’t have a clue.
@Michael Reynolds:
How the mighty are fallen.
From Her Majesty’s First Lord of the Treasury, to a novelty act on a knock-off sub-prime Fox News that gets a maximum weekly audience of around 400k.
Also: sod off, “Boris”.
It’s just so bloody undignified.
Tapping Lord Salisbury’s in-grave rotation could probably solve all our energy needs for a century.
OTOH, at least he had Liz Truss to make him look like a substantial statesman.
LOL
*cry*
@Mr. Prosser: Well obviously if the rapture is imminent we don’t need to worry about climate change. (Have we ever seen a tropical storm reach Cat 5 hurricane in 24 hours? But I’m sure it has nothing to do with water being warmer, which is just weather. /s)
Hey guys?! Matt’s been a solid commenter here for many years, he’s definitely not an idiot, and he’s definitely not a right wing nut job. You may have your differences of opinion when it comes to guns and caliber and whatnot, but let’s refrain from insults, ok? We don’t need to eat our own.
@Jax: How are you and your family and family friends holding up, pardon the intrusiveness?
Actor Richard Moll has passed away. I haven’t watched Night Court much but when I did I liked Moll as Bull the court bailiff. RIP.
@ Matt
Rather broad indictment of liberals. Do you have some data to support that the laws are being “abused to the maximum possible”?
How many judges have ruled that abuse that you claim?
.
@DK: Thank you for asking. It’s been a struggle. The funeral was….pure chaos. We did not expect 500 people. My brother….bless his heart….would not allow anyone to tell stories, and he limited my slide show pictures from 6 songs to 1 song. Then he proceeded to harangue us for 45 minutes about the lake of fire and saving our souls. Many people walked out.
I’m currently in the “settling the estate” mode. My Mom’s method of filing appears to have been “throw it in a box” the last few months. She has been incoherent the last 10 days, I’m not sure if it’s the cancer or the broken heart.
But other than that, I’m hanging in there. And thank you for asking. I suspect I’ll make an appointment with a psychologist in the next couple weeks. I’m in survival mode, I haven’t processed watching my Dad die like that yet, but I’m aware that I need to. The hard part is traveling for the appointments.
@CSK:
Oh, man, would I love to have that conversation.
“So, you agree that abortion isn’t murder, it’s a property issue?”
“So, you agree that you should treat everyone exactly the way you would wish to be treated?”
“So, you agree that only God has standing to judge anyone’s actions or lifestyle?”
“So, you agree that retaliation is never ever justified?”
“So, you agree to complete separation of Church and State?”
“So, you agree that wealth is a sign of corruption?”
…
@Jax: ” Matt’s been a solid commenter here for many years, he’s definitely not an idiot, and he’s definitely not a right wing nut job.”
That’s definitely true. But his current messages really do come across as right wing nut job. Maybe he’s just gotten tired of being the reasonable voice against gun control — how many times have we had these discussions? — or maybe he’s had a crummy day, or maybe he really has gone over the MAGA edge, although I certainly hope not.
But the responses he’s getting here do match the message he’s sending…
@Jax: I think this is a good reminder to take a breath.
I do think (as we see with the Israel conversations and other topics over time) that we (and I have been guilty of this, as well as having been the target at times) get so upset over a specific news item that we just want someone to upload on if we perceive of them as representing whatever it is that we are upset with.
@Steven L. Taylor: You also find that those countries have lower rates of violent crime in general. It’s almost as if there might be more than one factor at play here? No doubt fewer morons with guns is better.
@Michael Reynolds: I listed my advice just above you and it’s clear you couldn’t be bothered to read it. Hell we’ve had this discussion before and I’ve consistently stated I’m behind training, licensing, and insurance requirements. Unfortunately you have kicked into the lefties version of the abortion nutcase. You don’t care what I say or want just what you want to pretend I’m saying or desire.
@JohnMc:
The assault rifle concept was to use an intermediate cartridge to reduce recoil so the gun could be fired in full auto in a more controllable manner than a full sized cartridge. Selective fire is an integral part of the assault rifle definition as it’s stood since the early 1900s. By definition an intermediate cartridge has reduced stopping power compared to the full size version. The 10.4x38mmR Swiss was the first intermediate round produced with the goal of reducing the recoil of full sized rounds. The 5.56x45mm NATO round wasn’t developed until the 70s well after.
3 gun competitors have no problem firing shotguns in rapid fire while keeping on target. I’ve never had an issue outside of the 10guage and larger shotguns.
Watch the mad minute and you’ll see a 30-06 sized round being fire accurately into a target at 200 yards in very rapid fire.
The whole concept of using a .45 caliber round was to make a gun that could be fired in full auto accurately thus creating the sub machine gun concept. A .45 tommygun fires very predictably and consistently.
I can only imagine you must have stick arms and terrible posture if you cannot handle firing a gun in a manner that 10 years can do. Might I suggest you watch some youtube videos to see how others are handling it fine?
@Kathy:
The 30-06 round can do up to 3400 FPS generating over 4100 Joules.
The 5.56 is up to 3100 fps BUT it generates less than 2000 Joules of kinetic energy.
If you cannot tell muzzle velocity is only a small part of the lethality of a round. You can fire a bb at +5000 FPS but it’s still going to hit with under 500 joules.
Here’s some videos from the channel I posted last time someone asked me about this. Notice how the 30-06 does tremendously more damage resulting in the gel block being ripped apart. I wouldn’t want to be shot by either but it’s no contest that the 5.56 is vastly more survivable.
30-06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8E138NgyFs
5.56
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55CkeT7qdtM
@OzarkHillbilly: Then please explain to me how the physics “work” in that? I had no idea my semi auto guns were breaking newton’s third law of motion.
Your kick is mostly determined by the round firing not the mechanism triggering it. An ar-15 with a .50 cal upper will kick just as hard as a bolt action. If you had any real experience loading and firing rounds you’d know that the weight of the round, the powder chosen, and the amount of powder matter way more.
Now there are some semiautomatic and automatic weapons designed to reduce recoil by mechanical means and via porting. The vast majority of semiautomatic mechanisms aren’t designed that way and the recoil felt is on par with the same round being fired in a bolt action or single shot gun. My break action shot 20 gauge that I used for hunting and skeet shooting on the farm kicked less than our 12 gauge semi-auto remingtons. The 12 gauge single shot didn’t have any noticeable difference in kick vs our pump or semi-auto shotguns.
The rest of your rant is nonsensical and has no basis in reality. You’re just embarrassing yourself at this point.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve been hunting for a wide range of game. The craziest would have to be when I went to a friend’s “ranch” (cause farms are ranches in Texas apparently) and shot invasive hogs from a helicopter. The goal was pest control to reduce the damage to the farRANCH so we only grabbed the back straps and tails (Texas had a bounty for hog tails).
@Jax: It doesn’t matter to them they are just as bad as right wingers and abortion. They want to believe whatever fantasy they’ve cooked up in their heads and reality doesn’t matter. This happens every time I dare voice an opinion or correct someone’s falsehoods in relation to guns.
What’s funny is this was one of the blogs in the early 2000s that helped me transition from a hardcore right winger to whatever people decide. Those on the right call me a far leftie. The anti-gun nuts here call me a right wing nutcase. Personally I think I’m a left winger with a strong bias to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness stuff. Meaning basically outside of the 2A I’m generally in line with liberals..
@Matt: Just to be clear the 20 gauge break action shotgun was used by me as a kid(single to barely double digit age) when we went hunting or skeet shooting. We had a wide variety of rifles and shotguns in the gun cabinet in the farm house. As I grew older I shot all of them many times but only some of them were used for hunting due to Illinois hunting laws. Illinois was a shotgun and muzzle loading only state for hunting with a firearm back then. Although I’ve been told by family who still live there that single shot rifles were allowed for the 2023 hunting seasons.
@wr: What insults have I used? Did you take it personal when I observed that left wingers lose their mind over guns like right wingers lose their mind over abortion? Because this thread is full of that being true.
This is how it goes every single time I point out flaws and outright falsehoods. The venom aimed at me really is ridiculous and doesn’t help your cause.