this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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I am heavy weapons guy
TFC or TF2 heavy weapons guy?
I'm scared to think about the ammo costs
A revolution? In this economy?
Naw I need an A10 Warthog
Tbh ppl should have guns but not to give to kids, shoot joe across the street who did nothing to you, or shoot wildlife
or shoot wildlife
Unless they are subsistence hunting or protecting domesticated animals.
Some of us would like a Hawk MM-1, please.
"You only attack liberals, what about the other side?!?!"
I haven't heard this (strawman quote?) myself, but my answer is I rarely think people further "right" than liberals are worth discussing politics with. Outside of special circumstances, I skip arguing with anti-liberal "conservatives" and neo-nazis and go straight to denying speech (both peacefully, and where appropriate, forcefully). They generally have no interest in good faith or truthfulness, those concepts are silly, idealist and weak self-restrictions to them.
"Never argue with an idiot, they will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience," - Mark Twain.
Liberals, on the other hand, sometimes value other people, the search for truth and a better society as much as us. So it makes sense to discuss our disagreements so long as each side reciprocates that respect. We can actually learn from each other.
Relevant quote from Jean-Paul Sartre on antisemites (1946):
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
And a point of notice: it's worth acknowledging that some people share worker-class values but have adopted the language or even talking points of mass-media bigotry. I've even seen this in some unions, for example. I don't automatically consider them a lost cause like I do with nazi scum, even if their ignorance or careless word choice suggests they're "the other side" - the sides are drawn by the class war, not a culture war.
I see people calling "tankies" right wingers for this reason all the time on linked to me threads on shit like "meanwhileongrad" threads. The thought is since leftists attack democrats and liberals but never trump and conservatives, we are in support of trump and conservatives and are the actual right wingers. It is part of the horseshoe nonsense. The real reason I don't waste my time making fun of republicans and reposting anti-trump memes is that everyone in my target audience is already against them and its just a circlejerk at this point. Trump and conservatives don't deserve to be given validity at all but the liberals are caught up on the if you're not actively against something you support it.
"It costs $400,000 to fire this weapon...for twelve seconds."
An M134 shoots up to 6000 rounds per minute, and it shoots 7.62x51mm NATO (.308 Win). 12 seconds would be a maximum of 1200 rounds. If I'm buying some of the very best match-grade ammunition I can get (Hornady 168gr ELD-M) at $2.15/round, that works out to a maximum of $2580. Which ain't chump change, but is still about $397,420 short of $400,000.
It would be $616,946.77 in today's money.
The game is set in 1968, in an alternate history. Which means it can be any amount in today's money.
One is a job and the other's a mental sickness!
BONK!
Liberals can be influenced by words and memes, fascists need something stronger.
"when you go far enough left, you get your guns back"
I'm in this comment and I like it
Under no pretext.
Based
I wouldn’t confuse tolerance and ability to reason with weakness. Picking up an AR15 is just a last resort when, literally, all else fails, not a first resort.
Picking up an AR15 is just a last resort when, literally, all else fails
On the other hand, how late is too late? The later you leave it, the more innocent people might be imprisoned, exiled or killed, so I'd say we're obliged to draw a balance somewhere sooner than literally all else.
Let's consider the rise of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in Germany - when is the point where that level of physical violence became appropriate? Try picking a specific year or event. Try doing the same with other fascist regimes, like Italy's fascist party.
Using this knowledge, where is the red line with the current US regime? Innocent people are already being repressed, imprisoned and exiled.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I kept quiet; I wasn't a communist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I kept quiet;
I wasn't a trade unionist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I kept quiet;
I wasn't a social democrat.
When they locked up the Jews, I kept quiet;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to protest.
- Translation of Lutherian Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous poem.
The same principle applies for physical resistance. Divide and conquer is an effective strategy and already in the fascist playbook.
If the imprisonment of innocent people becomes anything other than rare, or if innocent people are being exiled or killed, then that implies logical analysis is not being followed or even considered but, instead, replaced with an immature and short-sighted subjective reality, meaning all else has already failed.
Agree. Shame there is only like 12 civilian transferrable examples that rarely come up for auction and the last one sold for $600k a few years back.
Opening the registry might bring them down to the "Mini gun or V10 Lambo" range.
Please explain why there are "only' 12 "civilian transferable" to a non-us.... Because here I stood thinking the ar15 already was the epitome of civilian wtf.
Prior to 1986, any US citizen could buy pretty much any machine gun they wanted so long as it was registered and the tax on the transfer was paid.
After 1986, you could not buy a new machine gun but could buy a "transferrable"(registered prior to 1986) machine gun as long as the tax was paid and you pass a background check.
This lead to a ton of registrations of various means to covert a semi auto gun into a full auto gun, some as simple as two pieces of metal sheet.
Post '86 machines guns are not transferrable between civilians unless the civilians have a special type of license that qualifies them as a manufacturer or demonstrator of certain weapons.
The demonstration class requires you to be actively demonstrating the firearms to law enforcement or government agencies as certified by a letter expressing interest or demand. So you have to have a department advocating on your behalf so that you could take transfer of a post 1986 machine gun.
For manufacturers, there is the expectation of demonstration, so you can't just make a machine gun for your own usage, it has to be demonstrated.
So there are only 12 m134 "gatling" guns that were registed prior to 1986 that can be purchased by your average Joe with a clean record. Most are prized pieces in a collection and will likely only see the auction block once a generation. They fire 2,000-6,000 rounds a minute, an M4(full auto AR-15) fires 700-970 rounds per minute.
There are supposedly also 6 transferrable mk19 automatic 40mm grenade launchers out there which go for over $600k. Problem with those is each round costs between $400 and $3000 and takes 9-18 months to transfer.
Jeez...thanks for the details. Wow. But...what if someone "defends" himself in a home-robbery with such a doomsday-device? Is that also level then or just simply the posession?
Not sure what the second question is.
There are an estimated 741k legal machine guns in the US. There has only been one incident of self-defense with a lawfully possessed machine gun, he was not guilty. There has only been 3 cases of legally owned machine guns being used in a homicide, two of those were cops, since 1934. Machine guns used in crime are unlawfully owned or manufactured.
The means of self defense does not matter in most cases, that does vary by state though. If you have a handgun and attack me, and I have an M16, and I kill you, I am within my rights assuming I had not provoked your attack.
Some states that are anti-gun would say that you using a gun against someone with a knife is an uneven use of force, so using a machine gun in those states against someone with a knife who is attacking you would be a big court case. Why they think an attacker should have fair odds and be met with a knife fight is beyond me. The loser of a knife fight dies in the street and the winner dies in the ambulance, shoot the fucker and live to sort out the rest.
It’s because in the USA you could legally own machine guns before the 1970s(?). Since the USA rarely retroactively makes things illegal… all the transferable miniguns were made before then and are registered to the ATF.
They're talking about the minigun