This is not a political post. If it sounds like one, come back and read that sentence again until you either understand, or until you get bored and give up.
If we were going to have a discussion of say, molecular biology, most of you would instinctively understand that unless you've opened some textbooks and read some papers, you probably don't know much.
If we were going to have a discussion of say, physics, most folks would instinctively understand that if they haven't studied it and thought about it very carefully they probably don't know much,.
I am watching (of course), countless people pontificate on firearms, firearms laws, assault weapons, the recently rejected "assault weapon ban" in Boulder, etc, etc, etc.... and almost none of them have any idea of what they are talking about.
We are all outraged and absolutely sick and tired of carnage in public spaces.... all of us.
That being said, if you haven't spent the last decade or two reading court cases and ATF bulletins on the meaning of terms like LOP and AOW, on the meaning of "assault weapon", and on the legal difference between "pistol brace" and "rifle stock" or between "flash hider" and "muzzle break" or what the court's definition of "pistol grip" is, you probably have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you are espousing strong opinions about what firearms laws are or (as matter of practicality) can/should be.
Again, this is not a political post. It's not a pro-or-anti 2nd Amendment post. I don't care what your political leanings are, nor what your opinion of guns is.
Probably 95% of the people I see expressing strong opinions on what the law is or what the law should be don't even known the meanings of the words they are using, nor how those things relate to the horrific crimes we see in the world around us.
In general, one's opinions are worthless if you don't have a general outline of reality.
Case in point: the Boulder Municipal assault weapons ban that was overturned a few days before the most recent massacre would not have applied to the assailants weapon. Repeated claims that "that ban needs to be reinstated" will make you feel emotionally good, but won't do anything to reduce the firepower of weapons in the hands of people that ought not have them.
Continuously, I watch lefties argue for laws that will be absolutely useless in obtaining the the outcomes they want. (And here I'm not voicing an opinion... I'm talking about the case where people specifically cry out for "policy X" to acheive "outcome Y" when there is no conceivable way that policy X can have any realistic effect on outcome Y.
I'm frustrated here because people who generally genuinely care about objective facts seems to stop caring as soon as the subject is firearms.