Guns

[Scarpia]

By the time the mag is empty there is no more crowd. Sounds effective to me. Plus, you just need to put it in 3-shot-burst mode and conserve your ammo. That full auto was just for show.

To be a bit more specific, a machine gun makes sense because all of the bullets go to different places.  A single shotgun discharge sprays pellets over a substantial area.  An automatic shotgun makes no sense to me because you would not be able to change the aim of the gun much between rounds and subsequent discharges would simply spray the same area again.  Just a waste of amo.

I suspect the only practical use for the weapon is exactly what we saw in the video.   

[Gurn Blanston]

I suspect the only practical use for the weapon is exactly what we saw in the video.   

Which in and of itself is sufficient.

[Mn Dave]

Cat scratch fever!!! Nuh-nuh-nuh...

[Ataraxia]

1. What's a good all-purpose hand gun for a city dude? Just curious. Desert Eagle, right?

[Ataraxia]

Oh, and for you iPhone folks, there's a neat little app called Small Arms.

[Todd]

Desert Eagle, right?

Far too large and cumbersome.  I say go old school, and get a short barrel revolver, but make sure it's got punch.  A 357 magnum should do the trick.  If you must go with a semi-auto, the Colt Combat Commander has always seemed a supremely safe bet.  It balances well in the hand.

[Ataraxia]

Thanks. I was kidding about the Eagle. That's what the protagonist in our zombie novels uses.

[Todd]

I was kidding about the Eagle.

No way.

[Ataraxia]

No way.

[Ataraxia]

No way.

I saw one on Burn Notice. That thing's huge!

[Ataraxia]

Far too large and cumbersome.  I say go old school, and get a short barrel revolver, but make sure it's got punch.  A 357 magnum should do the trick.  If you must go with a semi-auto, the Colt Combat Commander has always seemed a supremely safe bet.  It balances well in the hand.

On this app, I see no CCC and only the .500 magnum. Must just be the latest things.

[Todd]

only the .500 magnum. Must just be the latest things.

Yes, the old .44 magnum - powerful enough to blow your head clean off at one point - just isn't powerful enough anymore.  Having fired more than one handgun in my life, I find the notion of a 50 caliber pistol a bit more than faintly ridiculous.  But if people want to spend their money . . .

[bwv 1080]

50 caliber is for wussies - you need one of these - a 60 cal magnum:

http://www.vincelewis.net/60magnum.html

then you can be cool at the range like this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/v/0SajB5NbBiM

[Ataraxia]

THAT'S what I'm looking for.

[The new erato]

I guess to need to be as fat as that guy to even remotely be able to handle the recoil.

[Geo Dude]

I find the sort of debate that occurs in this thread long and frustrating...and generally, from my experience, unending.  Due to that, I only intend to dip a toe in in order to offer a sense of a bigger picture that many engaging in the debate miss out on:

The stat about Australia having 6% of the gun crime rate that the US does comes immediately to mind as an example of the kind of flawed logic frequently used in gun control debates.  Given the large number of variables that can affect gun crime (and other forms of crime), pulling out this number doesn't mean much unless you can at the very minimum demonstrate that prior to the gun ban Australia had a gun crime rate comparable to the US.

More importantly, that sort of argument ignores tangential issues related to enacting gun control:  What happens when citizens no longer have an effective means through which to defend themselves from criminals?*  Do stabbings go up after the ban?  What about break ins?  Sexual crimes?  What about crimes performed with use of blunt weapons?  What is the overall homicide rate and is it higher or lower than prior to the ban?  All of this is information that must be taken into account, otherwise the lower gun crimes statistic tossed out so carelessly becomes completely useless.

I'll use a hypothetical (small) country to illustrate my point more clearly since I'm not in the mood to dig through crime statistics for the millionth time in the past few years: 

Let's say that a given country has loose gun control laws and there are 50 fatal shootings a year, 10 fatal stabbings, 5 sexual crimes, 5 break ins, and five muggings with objects other than gun or knife.  I'll be generous here and say the government bans guns in order to reduce gun crimes.  After the ban, there are 5 fatal shootings, 70 fatal stabbings, 15 sexual crimes, 20 break ins, and 10 muggings.  Has any good been done by the gun ban in this case?  No, it has actually caused harm.  One of my greatest frustration in arguments over guns is that gun control advocates tend to willfully ignore this kind of information in favor of saying that less gun crimes = proof that gun control is good, even if other forms of violent crime and property crime go through the roof.  The big picture is important.

*I'm aware that some individuals have training in martial arts, knife combat, or happen to work out a lot and be particularly strong, but they're in the minority and generally speaking, the exceptionally fit are not targeted by criminals.  They prefer easier prey.

[Todd]

pulling out this number doesn't mean much unless you can at the very minimum demonstrate that prior to the gun ban Australia had a gun crime rate comparable to the US.

Comparing apples and oranges can be hard, and possibly fruitless, to be sure.

Of course, there is also more to gun ownership that crime stats, as the Supreme Court reminded us recently. 

[mc ukrneal]

I find the sort of debate that occurs in this thread long and frustrating...and generally, from my experience, unending.  Due to that, I only intend to dip a toe in in order to offer a sense of a bigger picture that many engaging in the debate miss out on:

The stat about Australia having 6% of the gun crime rate that the US does comes immediately to mind as an example of the kind of flawed logic frequently used in gun control debates.  Given the large number of variables that can affect gun crime (and other forms of crime), pulling out this number doesn't mean much unless you can at the very minimum demonstrate that prior to the gun ban Australia had a gun crime rate comparable to the US.

More importantly, that sort of argument ignores tangential issues related to enacting gun control:  What happens when citizens no longer have an effective means through which to defend themselves from criminals?*  Do stabbings go up after the ban?  What about break ins?  Sexual crimes?  What about crimes performed with use of blunt weapons?  What is the overall homicide rate and is it higher or lower than prior to the ban?  All of this is information that must be taken into account, otherwise the lower gun crimes statistic tossed out so carelessly becomes completely useless.

I'll use a hypothetical (small) country to illustrate my point more clearly since I'm not in the mood to dig through crime statistics for the millionth time in the past few years: 

Let's say that a given country has loose gun control laws and there are 50 fatal shootings a year, 10 fatal stabbings, 5 sexual crimes, 5 break ins, and five muggings with objects other than gun or knife.  I'll be generous here and say the government bans guns in order to reduce gun crimes.  After the ban, there are 5 fatal shootings, 70 fatal stabbings, 15 sexual crimes, 20 break ins, and 10 muggings.  Has any good been done by the gun ban in this case?  No, it has actually caused harm.  One of my greatest frustration in arguments over guns is that gun control advocates tend to willfully ignore this kind of information in favor of saying that less gun crimes = proof that gun control is good, even if other forms of violent crime and property crime go through the roof.  The big picture is important.

*I'm aware that some individuals have training in martial arts, knife combat, or happen to work out a lot and be particularly strong, but they're in the minority and generally speaking, the exceptionally fit are not targeted by criminals.  They prefer easier prey.

Forgetting which side of this I am on, I feel I need to point out that you have have come to your conclusion without taking into account the whole picture (as you say we should). There may be other factors for the crime rate increase, such as harder economic times, factors specific to that country, other laws that came into effect, etc. 

Personally, I don't see that we can ever ban guns outright, but I do wonder two things: 1) Do we really need automatic weapons to protect ourselves, and 2) Why isn't there more insistence on being able to properly use a gun if you own one. One thing that always impressed me in certain countries - if people own a gun, they know how to take care of it and they are trained in its use. This seems sensible to me.

[Todd]

1) Do we really need automatic weapons to protect ourselves

Unless something has changed recently, automatic weapons are very heavily regulated, with restricted and monitored sales, etc.  It's possible to buy automatic weapons illegally, of course, but that's the case worldwide.

[Geo Dude]

Forgetting which side of this I am on, I feel I need to point out that you have have come to your conclusion without taking into account the whole picture (as you say we should). There may be other factors for the crime rate increase, such as harder economic times, factors specific to that country, other laws that came into effect, etc. 

Agreed, there may be other factors present, but one has to consider this possibility, or at least look for similar patterns country to country, which most will not do.  You can also make specific predictions related to it and see if they match:  E.g. hard economic times may lead to more break-ins, but if a gun ban is shortly followed by a huge increase in break-ins with most of those break-ins focused on, say, the elderly, or women (or other groups that would be in a particular bind in regard to self defense without a gun) and you can see this pattern from country to country, you have an interesting hypothesis.  I don't mean to say this is the only correct answer to the cause for the increase in crime, but it's a viable possibility and tends to go unexamined.