It's funny, I don't think you realize how many telltale signs of "doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about" you're displaying. You're using terms like "Machine Gun" and "Assault Rifle" as a proxy for "This gun LOOKS scary, so it must be deadlier!" which just isn't the case. Second, I wasn't saying the cops gave those guys machine guns - I'm saying that THE ONLY crime committed with a legally acquired MACHINE GUN after they started the NFA background check system, in US History, was committed by a cop who was provided his gun by his department.
An AK-47 ISN'T a "Machine Gun" OR an "Assault Rifle." It's a PATTERN of firearm. It's like saying a Ford Pinto performs the same as a Mustang because they have wheels. An Assault Rifle shoots 3 rounds per trigger pull. A machine gun shoots rounds repeatedly as long as the trigger is depressed. Both of which, while NOT illegal, are REALLY fucking hard to get legally. You have to have a special kind of FFL license and or a special tax stamp from the ATF, which is expensive, requires a comprehensive background check, usually the gun has to date to prior to 1986 to be legally transferred so it's rare and supplies are dwindling. Most importantly, it takes A YEAR to get the paperwork done. Not something criminals are going to bother with - nor have they so far. The AK's you can buy here DO NOT fire full auto or in 3 round bursts (I don't even think there is a assault pattern AK but, w/e). On top of that, in pretty much every case (I think there's been like 2 or 3 exceptions), the guns used in mass shootings were obtained illegally, semi-auto or otherwise. You get red flagged for mental illness or previous felonies and can't pass a NIX to buy a gun which tends to rule out legal purchases for the violently insane and criminals pretty effectively. That means that the "aK deAtH MacHine GuNs" those guys used are, functionally, the same as a pistol (which makes up the lion's share of gun killings) or any other rifle. They're actually LESS deadly, for reasons I'll get to later. It just "looks scary" and has a reputation amongst people who think what they see on TV is reality.
Additionally, becasue of the Geneva Convention, military pattern rifle calibers - like .223/5.56mm in AR's or 7.62mm in AK are designed to wound and incapacitate by being high velocity, "through and through" projectiles that leave less gruesome wounds than hollow point pistol rounds. They tend to actually have the problem of NOT immediately incapacitating assailants, which is why cops use pistols w/ hollow points. Additionally, AK pattern rifles are notorious for conflict NOT because they're effective but because they're CHEAPLY MADE out of stamped metal under the old Soviet philosophy of "quantity has a quality all its own" and aren't particularly good, accurate or deadly guns. There's just a fuckton of them floating around in 3rd world conflict zones because the USSR made them in higher quantity than food for its people. However, they're relatively rare here because they can't be imported and have to be made locally. We also don't share a border with the conflict zones that were flooded with them (it's basically an African, Asian or Eastern European gun). Given those issues I mentioned, they tend to be pretty unpopular, except as rarish contraband that's been illegally imported. I'm not saying you can't get them but, they're since they're inferior to the much easier to acquire AR in pretty much every respect, they just aren't common
Meanwhile, pistols - which no politician who wants to get elected will try to ban because they're so popular for self defense - are almost always loaded out with Hollow Points. Which are illegal under the GC because of the wounds they make. They will go in at the size of the bullet and blow out a hole the size of a silver dollar for a smaller round to up to an orange for larger handgun rounds. They will fuck your shit up and kill with just a glancing hit to a vital area. A 4" pocket pistol running .380 ACP Hollow points - basically the smallest self defense round (also larger than the rounds an AR or AK fires), is WAYYYY easier to conceal and arguably MUCH deadlier. It's REALLY hard to accurately hit a vital spot, even with a rifle's stability and get an instant kill with just penetration (it's like being stabbed with an ice pick). Hollow points on the other hand only require a glancing hit to cause massive trauma to surrounding areas, open up arteries in the limbs, etc. So, if you're going to be terrified of guns, you should be bitching about pistols 40% of women are carrying in their purses. If you think that's bad, you should see what kind of damage shotguns do...
As for actual machine guns and assault rifles being "dangerous" they're even LESS EFFECTIVE than what I already mentioned. They're fun to shoot at the range once or twice in a lifetime but, bullets are expensive and you litteraly will dump the whole magazine within a second of holding the trigger down. That means your aim is so shitty you're LESS likely to hit a target than with an aimed shot. The reason they're used in combat is because you're likely only going to get a glimpse of a target, at 200+ yards, while moving from cover to cover and, just spray as much lead their way as possible, hoping for a lucky, unaimed hit. That's why it takes something like 10,000 rounds per combatant killed in warfare. The doctrine is litteraly referred to as "Spray and Pray" (that you hit something).
Point being, you want to control access to guns but don't even know the first thing about them. That means you should probably STFU and defer to people who actually know what they're talking about. And that goes double for the dumbfuck politicians you probably vote for and the media talking heads whose opinions you mindlessly parrot.
Dude, you are quickly eating up my daily patience quota for interacting with idiots on the internet. Over several posts you've claimed that "you were pro 2a until a shooting at a strip club nearby me (in Anaheim)" AND "I live in the UK so I know gun control works." So which is it? Do you live in Anaheim or the UK ? The far more likely option is you're fucking LARPing as "just some reasonable guy who used to be pro 2a until this thing happened (sort of) to you" but really know fuckall about guns, gun crime and were never pro 2a. I'll take the latter. Given the current "situation" people aren't exactly jetsetting between LA and Stratford on Avon. Meaning, you're likely a liar.
Oh my god, you're so fucking dense it's incredible... There are nearly 400 MILLION people living in the USA. Mass Shootings are High Visibility, LOW PROBABILITY events. Per Capita, it IS NOT a significant threat or cause of death. It's litteraly the same odds as winning a lottery ticket. A shooting in Anaheim is about as relevant to the average American as a Terrorist attack or criminal shootout in Serbia is to an Englishman. The USA is fucking BIG. Also, terrorist attacks and mass shootings ONLY STOP when someone else WITH A GUN stops them. There have been NUMEROUS incidents of armed citizens stopping these attacks before they become massacres and, as such, aren't really getting the same media attention. Adding to that, because the USA is so big and spread out - even our cities are spread out compared to the Old World - so, police response times are 5-10 minutes BEST CASE scenario, likely more like 20-30 mins for a serious issue and for MOST Americans, it can be up to an hour. Good luck holding out for the cops as an unarmed victim against assailants for 5 minutes, nonetheless an hour. Assuming it isn't an animal attack, which is a big problem here too.
YET AGAIN, most gun deaths are CLEAN SHOOTS - justifiable homicide in self defense or defense of another, unlike Europe where criminals have more rights than victims and are expected to roll over and let themselves be victimized, here we have a RIGHT to self defense. So, for those "victims" of shootings, I could give a shit less; good riddance.
Followed by SUICIDE which, while sad, isn't like there aren't other alternatives. People still kill themselves in places without guns, they just use other methods. Apart from the philosophical argument on whether someone has the right to self terminate, they're going to do it anyway and in a lot of countries where guns are banned, medically assisted suicide is legal so, that's irrelevant.
Then, you have Gun Homicide in the course of a crime as a DISTANT third. Like a few percentile of total gun deaths. Even then, MOST of that gun crime is gang violence related, with one set of gangbangers shooting another set of gangbangers. The problem with CRIMINALS is that they don't follow the law. If you want to murder someone, the legality of obtaining a hot gun is insignificant compared to the legality of wanting to murder someone. That means that when you take guns away, the only people who will have them are criminals. When surveyed, violent offenders rank an armed victim as their number one fear and deterrent. Meaning LEGAL GUNS are a deterrent against GUN CRIME and especially crimes like RAPE where there's usually a vast mismatch between the physical strength the attacker and the victim. Additionally, it's HARD to buy a legal gun - you have to go through background checks, waiting periods and all kinds of ridiculous shit to get one. Just ask all the first time gun buyers in cities scrambling to get guns once they realized that at the end of the day, they only have themselves to rely on.
People like you who seem to have ZERO actual real knowledge about guns seem to think they're magic talismans of death being sold from vending machines. They AREN'T. Guns are a force equalizing TOOL. It uppends physical strength as the primary determinant of who will win a fight. It allows women, the elderly and the outnumbered A CHANCE to defend themselves against someone who's statistically a male between the ages of 16-29 and likely 2 to 4x as strong as their victims. If not more - not to mention much more able to deal in violence. There's a reason for the saying "God created men but Samuel Colt made them equal."
We have a CRIME problem, a GANG problem and a MENTAL ILLNESS problem, we DO NOT have a GUN problem. Until they decided to upend social cohesion with mass immigration, Europe used to look at the US as some wild west with a massive gun problem. Only now, THEY have the same problems we do, which is gang crime predominantly in certain demographics that for whatever reason aren't integrating into society. As a result, they have to resort to treating Adults like children and confiscating knives; you know how ridiculous they look when they brag about "getting those weapons off the street" with a pile of cutlery, butter knives and sporks? London, even with its ridiculous crackdown on "knives of mass destruction" is MORE DANGEROUS, per capita, than ANY major US city. And that's where most of our gun crime problems originate - with crime and gangs. Look at Sweden as a microcosm of the European model. They have routine Drive by Grenade attacks and No Go zones where COPS are afraid to go. Do you have any idea of how horrifying that looks to us? It doesn't look like banning guns has worked out great to me...
It was where all the land lines came in for TN and surrounding areas of neighboring states. It disrupted emergency broadcast, cell phones, critical infrastructure, etc. for at least a day in those areas and snarled things up. It's also thought to be one of the sites where the NSA splices into the phone system to monitor traffic. A lot of people don't realize this but it seems the CIA and NSA / DOD are in a conflict with each other - likely over the vote rigging. The DOD has halted all aid the CIA and access to assets on Jan 3rd (could be off by a few days).
It seems like this was cover for something else going on at the same time / disrupting one side's ability to monitor something. Like a massive misdirection. Also odd about the warning. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy in the RV was "suicicided" and already dead inside the RV before it blew as a patsy. Suspiciously like the whole Paddock thing in Las Vegas. Let's see if it fades away in the media just as fast as LV....
In order to own a machine gun, you have to fill out a ton of forms, wait a year to get a tax stamp and there are strict rules around it. Do you know how many of those machine guns have been used in a crime in America? 1. And it was committed by a police officer with a machine gun provided to him by the department. If those two guys were using "machine guns" they were ALREADY illegal...
"Hey, you know all those people OD'ing on street Fentanyl and Heroin? I have a great idea! Let's make them illegal! That'll stop the problem!" <-- This is what you sound like, you dumb fuck.
No, you won't be jailed in America because of the 1st amendment. "Hate Crimes" are used as an enhancement if proven to be the motivation in a crime of violence.
2nd, you said you were pro 2a until someone shot up a strip club near you with two AKs and that "we should have gun restrictions like the UK" now, you're saying you live in the UK.... You either just got caught in a lie or you got caught admitting that gun control does nothing because those 2 people in the UK still had AKs and used them - even though they're illegal.... Shocking!
No. MOST shootings in America are clean shoots - meaning CLEAR case of self defense. Followed by suicides. Then, in the distance, individual homicide. As for Mass Shootings, you're more likely to be killed by a lightning strike.
You know what you're thousands of times more likely to die of? Getting killed in a car crash. Do you want to ban cars too?
You're repeating yourself ;p