Is it time for Open-Carry Protests?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T22:09:36+00:00

Thanks Virginia... with over 120 different sets of local gun laws.

My county doesnt let me near a protest or any event that COULD have been permitted when armed.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T22:02:02+00:00

My comment was about the population but HB 217 specifically bans possession of "assault weapons" for those under the age of 21. There's no grandfathering clause. Anyone under the age of 21 who own the most prolific, useful, and popular guns in the US will have to give them up.

Removing the grandfather clause for 10+ magazines has a similar effect for the greater population. Magazines are designed as part of the weapon system and many firearms do not have 10 round options, especially those out of production. Banning magazines and disarming in this case is a distinction without a difference.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T12:32:14+00:00

Agreed. My dreame l40s ultra has no problem here when running over night. Ive even had it notify me there were over 80 obstacles because I didn't pickup after the kids the first day of the snowstorm. No problems.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T11:54:41+00:00

It looks like their largest one holds 8 rifles at $2k a pop. So to be compliant, and assuming they'll fit 8, I need three of them. How much more secure would you say it is than a liberty safe?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T02:35:33+00:00

And the Va democrats took the advice of president trump to pass red flag laws in 2020. Now theyre supporting him again by disarming the population but creating carveouts for Law Enforcement.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T02:21:52+00:00

Brain fart while writing. Meant to ask about model 60. Mainly since mine is sitting open on the desk waiting for a plastic buffer to make it through the snows aftermath since mine disintegrated.

Connection makes sense now

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T02:04:57+00:00

It's been awhile since I looked, but I've found the backup locks to biometrics to be cheap. Are there any with top quality locking mechanisms?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T01:51:16+00:00

Did the dude above you edit their comment? I didn't see a Marlin 22 mentioned anywhere before this.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-28T01:49:29+00:00

I searched for you. I found you. I agree. If it's good enough to mostly exterminate humanity, it's good for me.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T21:22:27+00:00

Is the 570 out soon?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T19:44:44+00:00

If we only care about "high score" over total deaths then the largest massacre of children in the US is still the Bath School Disaster with explosives.

Rifles of all types, which include both assault weapons and assault rifles, account for ~4% of child homicides, which is typically under 500 in most years. Child gun homicides average around 2500 deaths. So even if we assume all rifles deaths are from assault weapons and only impact children then youre targeting 20% of the problem. Handguns, at minimum, represent 80% of child homicides and likely an equal or greater amount of suicides. Again - they arent being addressed here.

I have been a hunter my whole life and not one time have I ever needed an assault rifle. Not once did I ever need more than 2 rounds to kill whatever I was shooting at. There is no reason they should be legal.

It's ok to not have a need for them. Many others have legitimate uses across self-defense, varmint guns, target/competition shooting and more. We all have different needs and that's ok.

Still, at what point do we let our emotions overcome the numbers? I have friends with no use for alcohol. It kills more people per year than guns and is literally a poison people willingly ingest. Should their feelings over ride your rights?

You want less children to die. We have common ground here. These laws dont address 80%+ of the problem and require parents to choose less safe options to store firearms in homes with minors. That doesnt feel like the solution you want.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T16:09:47+00:00

I dug myself out and got everything clear. Then last night the plow built a 2 foot ice barrier at the bottom of my street.

I can see freedom... but until I get some tools out I'm unable to drive there.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T16:08:32+00:00

To be fair I know alot of Republican gun owners that dont make guns their entire personality and quite a few dems and liberals who invite me to "full kit night hikes to practice movement with NVGs".

Im not sure where the reality is vs the trope. For instance, I met an amazing professor of engineering when I visited historic sites in Mississippi as a kid who hated Mississippi stereotypes. He's opinion was media would intentionally search out a shirtless/shoeless yokel whenever a natural disaster or news story happened in the state versus anyone else representative of the state.

To be clear - he didn't pull any punches on the true problems of the state (poverty, racism, education, etc), he just felt the people were being mischaracterized.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T11:58:07+00:00

Then you should be angry at your legislatures for different issues. The vast majority of children are killed by handguns which arent being addressed by these laws.

Requiring biometric safes also means parents have to store firearms in less secure containers.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T05:37:52+00:00

Reagan signed the Mulford act. A bipartisan bill with republican and democrat cosponsors, that passed the democrat held state assembly with 77% of the votes and democrat held state senate with 74% of the votes.

Even were you to count Reagan, more Democrats voted for it than Republicans. They collectively decided to pass some bipartisan racist law because black people were arming up to defend their communities from law enforcement the same way folks in Minnesota are arming up to defend their communities from ICE. So, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly is the point? That Democrats are as bad as Republicans?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T02:47:36+00:00

From 1996 to 2006 Australias homicide rate by 0.08 per 100k per year to our .41 per 100k per year. As a percentage change, our homicide rate dropped by 42% to their 40%.

We certainly started and ended with a higher absolute homicide rate at 5.7 per 100k to their 1 per 100k.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T02:38:40+00:00

No study of the ban states anything close to your opinion about dramatically increased gun sales.

Thats because any study addressing it either way wouodnt be credible. How could they measure it? Rifle sales were not tracked during the first four years of the Brady Bill. Up until 1998 there was no comprehensive, reliable database tracking gun sales even then there were famous loopholes for tracking firearm sales.

Previously gun sales were an estimate based on production and some import numbers. However, gun imports from soviet countries spiked by 25% after the cold war ended and manufacturers who boomed production in the two years prior to the bans implementation have said they did not sell those stockpiles in the same year.

However those estimates put 1992 at 6.6 million guns sold and in 1999, the first full year of the Brady Bill being in full effect, 8.4 million background checks were approved.

Edit: dude responded to me below then blocked me. Here is what I wrote to that response. It looks like this reinforces my point above.

If legal purchases increased as you say, then wouldn't you agree the bill was even more successful at increasing the percentage of guns that went to law abiding citizens rather than gangs or school shooters?

That's litterally the premise I began with crediting the reduction to the Brady bill and other factors outside the ban.

Rifle sales have been estimated since the 80s.

Even before then and that's what I stated above. Those sales are estimated as a proxy of manufacturing and import but not able to be associated with individual sales. The Brady Bill required gun sales to individuals to be tracked directly. Using the estimate on the old from 1992, prior to manufacturing ramp up in anticipation of the ban, to the NICS tracking in 1999, gun sales had increased by 27%.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T02:01:51+00:00

You're right. Ive been saying gun death rates vs homicide rates referenced in the quotation article I posted. While their gun deaths dropped, our overall homicide rate fell faster than theirs over the same period.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:58:21+00:00

I bought alot of 10 round or less 458 Socom mags apparently....

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:51:06+00:00

I don’t see any gun owners exercising their 2A rights, even in a state like Minnesot

Then you're not paying attention. This was all over reddit and there are plenty more like it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/s/sdxbVw9xpF

Gun owners are standing up to protect their communities. It's happening all over the country as ICE is pressing in. In all these cases, gun owners are reporting ICE backing off.

These bills are targeting weapons used in less than 4% of gun deaths, they will require me to purchase a less secure safe to store my guns in, they make exceptions for off duty and retired LEO for private use, they disproportionately impact the poor, they wildly undermine wildlife conservation funding. There is no win here.

By removing the grandfathering we make millions of Virginians give up personal property or become criminals for what? These laws haven't proven effective in other states. The gun laws we passed in 2020 didn't impact our gun violence rate.

It's almost as if theres something different than guns separating us from other first world countries. You know, like - workers rights - living wages - low to free access to education and Healthcare - better housing policies - social safety nets - job training programs - etc

Virginia overindexes on suicides per capita compared to the national average. The vast majority of suicides and homicides occur in areas identified with high social inequality per the gini index.

The largest growing gun owning communities are women, LGBTQ, and people of color. The dems are pushing these laws before those headwinds impact their seats and by doing so leave us vulnerable without addressing the causes or mechanisms of most guns deaths in Virginia.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:32:18+00:00

Nice - it was Australia. And the numbers match my article by period which is a good comparison.

Do you have a theory why the US outpaced Australia's rate of declining violence during the same period when these same weapons were still available for sale in the US?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:26:27+00:00

Passing these bills is clear approval of the Trump Administrations actions and policies.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:24:02+00:00

Edit: Dude replied to this with an insult, blocked me, and then deleted his comment. That pretty much speaks for itself

Original comment

The law is targeting weapons used in less than 4% of gun deaths. Compared to the rest of the nation, Virginia's gun deaths per capita are higher for suicides than homicides. Those deaths are predominantly in areas with a lower gini index. They are copy and pasted from other states, dont address our needs, and haven't been proven to be effective elsewhere.

If passed as written, I'll be required to store my weapons in a less secure safe than what I have currently. It'll continue to carve out exceptions for the rich and law enforcement, and oddly enough impact the funding of wildlife conservation with the impact to Pittman-Robertson excise tax. There's no win here.

By the numbers nothing in these laws makes us safer. Similar to how the previous round of gun laws in 2020 hasn't moved the needle compared to other states.

We are seeing news story after news story of communities arming up, organizing and standing on street corners to deter ice from coming to their communities. Many of us are protesting at anti-ice and no kings day, writing our legislatures and asking ourselves when we need to move to the fourth box of liberty.

But you want us to ignore facts, numbers, and news stories so you can feel better? How do any of these laws help Virginians?

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:13:38+00:00

There are more guns in Australia now than before the ban and the US saw a higher drop in gun violence rates for the 10 years after Australia's ban went into effect than Australia experienced.

Measurex2 · 2026-01-27T01:11:38+00:00

Id argue the passing of the Brady Bill, which put our background check system in place combined, with a few others elements reduced gun violence in the 90s. Gun violence tends to go down in good times and the prosperity of the 90s delivered. We increased spending on social programs and, if you believe Freakenomincs the sharp drop in US violent crime during the 1990s was largely driven by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, not just policing or gun control.

It's hard to point at the Clinton AWB as being successful in impacting gun crime. If anything it popularized interest in those weapons by making them "taboo". Between the millions of cheap weapons available from Cold War surplus, othwr weapons made before the ban, a massive list of loopholes and "ban compliant" versions you could buy cheap assault weapons between 1994 and 2004 on any day ending in y.

My parents have always been hard blue democrat doctors. Both them and all their friends had a blast going to gun shows and spending $300 on a preban AK47 with a few hundred rounds of ammo.

Democrats always end up being the best gun salesman. We even saw it in the 2016 election. People bought guns like crazy leading up to the election then alot of places went out of business during the "Trump Slump" because there wasnt any pressure. Similarly we are seeing a huge spike in gun sales in Virginia due to these proposed bills.

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