The Virginia House of Delegates approved an assault weapons ban on a party line vote Friday.
Fairfax County Democratic Del. Dan Helmer’s bill would end the sale and transfer of assault firearms manufactured after July 1, 2024. It also prohibits the sale of certain large capacity magazines.
“This bill would stop the sale of weapons similar to those I and many of the other veterans carried in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Helmer said.
Self-defense pistols require higher mag capacity for 2 reasons.
One reason is because the goal of shooting an attacker isn’t to kill him from blood loss in 40 minutes. It’s to stop him from killing you in 5 seconds, meaning it generally requires multiple hits to physically stop them.
And the bigger reason is because precise shooting under stress is really, really difficult. In a 2-way shooting scenario with 5 rounds the most likely outcome is you miss all 5 shots. You carry 12-15 rounds in the mag not so you can shoot someone 12 times - you do it so you have 12 chances to hit.
It’s also one of the reasons you don’t hear about people with concealed firearms taking out mass shooters very often. Anyone with a lick of training knows they’re going to miss most of their shots and that they’re more likely to shoot an innocent bystander than the shooter.
If the goal is to stop someone in 5 seconds, why would you need more rounds for the higher caliber rifle? Seems like 5 rifle rounds and 12-15 pistol rounds would be enough stopping power.
But if your argument is more chances to hit, well then you’re just advocating for more rounds going somewhere other than there target, and 30 (high caliber rifle) rounds is certainly too much to fire out your walls willy nilly.
it’s like you only read half of the comment and raced to post this reply…
the comment you replied to said:
the reason why you need more than 5 rifle rounds, IS NOT about stopping power. It’s about giving you more than enough chances to land hits (if such a thing is absolutely necessary, the #1 goal of any sane gun owner is to avoid a firefight at ALL FUCKING COSTS).
Precise shooting in a stressful environment is really fucking hard, your heart is hammering your hands are shaking, you realize this could be the end. All of these factors heavily affect shooting ability in the moment.
you are making a lot of assumptions here, like assuming it’s home defense shooting 556 or the like. What happens when you’re out in the wilderness and end up in a face off with a bear or a cougar? There are so many complex settings and situations and here you are framing the conversation as if this only applies to defending your bedroom or hallway.
For home defense, many many people take this into account and avoid calibers with high penetration power. Not every home defenser has 5.56 or .300blk. Plenty of “assault weapons” that shoot pistol calibers
Nice ad hominem, thank you for putting your poor faith on display right away, but no, I was merely just addressing the points as presented.
So why did they say the rifle needed more than the handgun?
So the numbers should be the same then, no?
Which is dangerous for anyone nearby.
Seems like you’re the one making assumptions, champ, all I implied is higher caliber, because I don’t think people often refer to .22 carbines as rifles.
Okay, so how many shots do you think you need for a bear, or for a cougar? Because even if you’re squeezing your trigger as fast as possible, a cougar is gonna be able to finish you before you finish your 30 round mag.
oh cute, a nice little strawman to finish with, almost needed a reminder that you were a bad faith actor. Didn’t say anything about assault weapons though, scare quotes were cute though, definitely keep that up.
Also not who you’re arguing with nor who you originally replied too, but:
He didn’t, but “because the pistol still needs to be concealable.” Jam this in your pants and it’ll 100% stick out, or “print” as they call it. Rifles are inherrently less concealable, so they may as well have their standard capacity magazines.
Not who you’re arguing with, but I am who you initially replied to.
I never said a rifle needed more ammo than a pistol, and you’re claiming I did. I only addressed handguns in my comment. So maybe there’s some accuracy to the claim you are framing your reply before reading the comments…
Also, an AR-15 is a .22 inch (22 caliber) carbine. It’s not a .22lr carbine (though I have BCG replacement that let’s me run .22lr through it for cheaper plinking).
Then the same is true for the person attacking you.
The pro-gun community insists that even “a lick of training” should be entirely optional.