[airspirit]

I've shot fully automatic weapons, and that is the reason that I support banning them.

Mind you, now: I'm a firm supporter of gun rights and ownership. I think everyone should be taught to use a gun, and I feel that it is part of our cultural heritage to be able to go out into the woods and splatter animals into goo and carry out drive by shootings on stop signs, not to mention putting holes in people that illegally enter my house.

I do feel, however, that though semi-automatic "assault rifles" are perfectly fine since there is no significant difference from any other semiauto out there, that automatic weapons should be banned. There is no purpose to use one for hunting: they kick so much and cause such inaccuracy that they would be nearly useless. When using an automatic, you need to start low and sweep up through a target ... and the upward sweep would be greatly aided by the kick of the weapon. This is absolute insanity when putting in a hunter's perspective.

The only purpose of automatic weapons is to drop large numbers of targets quickly. As added clarification: the purpose is to drop large numbers of ADVANCING targets quickly. If you start spraying at some deer with an auto, they will scatter and you will have no hope of bagging one. If you start spraying at some soldiers advancing on you, you will likely kill a few at least. The only purpose of automatic weapons is being able to kill multiple people at a time, not multiple deer, elk, or beer bottles.

Since the modern purpose of firearm ownership is not to repel an army but rather is for personal use and protection (and your house will probably not be invaded by hordes of junkies any time soon), there is no lawful purpose for owning automatic weapons. The only domestic use would be the same use they saw in the prohibition era: gunning down other people.

But let me tell you, the day someone trys to disarm me of my more sensible weapons is the day they'll get some rough surgery and acquire some advanced internal aircooling.