The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.
The decision, a major win for gun safety advocates, leaves in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that the state may constitutionally prohibit sale and possession of the weapons.
The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation. They are legal in 41 of the 50 states.
It really doesn’t. AR-15s are everything you said, but just because you take this one specific model rifle it off the market doesn’t mean there aren’t thousands of lightweight semi automatic rifles that are cheap and just as capable to buy instead. They might not be the gun owner’s version of LEGO, but they’re just as available and just as lethal.
If someone wants to be a mass shooter they have unlimited options in the USA. AR-15s are just so common you see them more. Starting this decade about 1/4 of the firearms produced in the USA are AR-15s.
If 1/4 the cars sold in the USA were Corollas because they’re cheap and easy to drive, would banning Corollas in Maryland reduce car wrecks? No, people would just drive Camrys or Civics or whatever and still drive like idiots.
Driving is a requirement in america for most. Owning a gun is not for anyone I can think of outside employment reasons.
That’s a pretty common perspective for anyone that’s never lived a life where you must hunt in order to put food on your family’s table, or you need to shoot coyotes or other pests that attach your livestock or crops that threaten your farm-to-table, or lived in an area where there’s literally no police for an hour or more and it’s just you if anyone comes knocking.
Poor rural folks don’t have a huge representation on Lemmy but there are plenty that live this way in the USA.
You don’t see it in the bigger cities and suburbs, rightfully so.
I don’t even live in a small town and there’s plenty of people I work with that drive in ~45 minutes and have livestock that have to worry about coyotes and other wild dogs attacking their livestock.
Guns are a tool. If you can’t imagine what they’re a tool for all it means is you lack perspective to see how - no judgment, just stating the fact. I mention all this because this misunderstanding is a huge reason for the divide between pro/anti gun crowds, and closing the gap can help set us up for better discussions about where we want to go in terms of gun legislation (assuming you’re in the USA - if not then all applies in general, not to you specifically)
Most of the reasons you listed count as employment reasons. I don’t personally think a gun is needed if police are an hour away however, even in the city.
I mostly agree with you (see my other comments in the thread). I was just explaining it from the perspective of the Maryland lawmakers. Although, you’re not entirely correct. It appears that the law is a lot more broad than the title would lead you to believe
Read the law before you assume what it says.
https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/bills/sb/sb0623f.pdf
It doesn’t take “one specific model” off the market, it redefines assault weapon in the text of the law to include any weapon with certain features.
Well, it defines assault weapons rather than redefines. As that wasn’t previously any kind of classification of gun. Just a scare term that politicians liked to use similar to “super predator”.
No, it redefines it. It repeals the old definition and enacts a new definition. That is redefining. Did you read it?
Yeah, but the law you linked only says what it’s modifying. Did the previous law define the term “assault weapon” in Maryland, too?
Yes. Specifically, assault pistol. This new definition adds assault long gun.
My reply wasn’t in response to the law, but to the guy claiming that by removing AR-15s you increase the barrier to entry to mass shootings.
He was talking about the law, which does more than that. I don’t think anyone here is proposing banning one single model.
No, he was responding to a top level comment about banning a style of weapons being ineffective, and essentially said that banning this particular platform of weapon will be effective because reasons.
The top level comment was also talking about the law, incorrectly.