Real World Impact of Gun Control Measures

The real impact of gun control measures:

1) The strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia have not reduced mass shootings. Mexico has strict gun laws. How's that working out? Chicago currently has the most restrictive gun laws in America, yet has the highest gun deaths in the country. Criminals don't obey gun laws.

2) No gun owner walks into the store to buy an “assault weapon.” 'Assault weapon' is a very specific classification that is ignorantly and intentionally misused as a propaganda ploy.

An actual assault weapon is a military designation for a light rifle that has at least two modes of fire: single-shot (one round per trigger pull) and automatic fire (fire is continuous and at a high cyclic rate as long as the trigger is held down and there is ammunition feeding into the chamber). The usual standard is three modes: single-shot; three-round burst (per trigger pull); and fully automatic.

An AR-15 is NOT an 'assault rifle.' It is the cosmetically similar semi-automatic version of the military rifle, the M-16, which IS an assault rifle.

Fully automatic firearms, including assault rifles and sub-machine guns, are almost impossible to buy and own, being under extreme licensing laws that effectively ban them (Firearms Act, 1934). Only very special circumstances of civilian security and police forces can qualify for such a license.

3) Silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don’t make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer.

4) Magazine limits might make a difference, but a practiced shooter could still change magazines so fast as to make the limit meaningless.

5) 70% of gun deaths in the United States every year are suicides. Almost no proposed restriction would make it meaningfully harder for people with guns on hand to use them to kill themselves.

6) The second next-largest set of gun deaths — 20% — are young men aged 15 to 34, killed in homicides. These men are most likely to die at the hands of other young men, often related to gang loyalties or other street violence. 97% of the 7,880 black male homicides each year are committed by other black men. These are illegal guns.

7) Nearly half the country experiences some kind of mental illness during their lifetimes. Should they all be barred from owning guns and their names and diagnoses held in a public FBI database to ensure compliance?