• Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    11 hours ago

    This is one huge problem I have had with gun control advocates. In Canada they are basically banning all rifles that look ‘military’. The problem? All, and I mean ALL semi-auto rifles now look like that. Even ones that still have wooden furniture like a pre-WW2 era rifle can have them swapped out for black polymer and ‘look’ modern.

    Even lever guns are sporting serious polymer furniture that make them look like sci-fi western guns.

    The definition of ‘military style’ gun was created in the late 80s when your average gun owner was still owning their vintage ww2 surplus rifle (from the 1960s to 70s WW2 era rifles were so common on the market that there wasn’t that much room for anything truly new) that had that old school look while all new military rifles had switched to polymers and had protruding pistol grips.

    The rhetoric has remained the same despite almost 40 years passing and a lot of basic changes.

        • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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          4 hours ago

          Mini-14 is now prohib in Canada as of 2020. They say they did it because of the Polytechnique shooting in 1989, but they had passed sweeping gun legislation in the 90s already. It is kinda incredible how that shooting is still the number 1 talking point and they’ve practically competely forgotten about the Nova Scotia shooting in 2020. I think it is because they are well aware that the 2020 shooting was done pretty much entirely with firearms smuggled in from the US. And the one gun that he had that was sourced in Canada the RCMP let him have due to a major league fuckup when they had all the right to just take it.

          Also he was forbidden from owning firearms well before the shooting. Despite countless complaints that he had guns and seemed to be planning something fucked, they chose to do nothing, as usual.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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            4 hours ago

            It’s funny how gun control is a legitimately important issue but some of its biggest and loudest advocates are more interested in looking busy and being ‘tough’ on guns rather than addressing actual problems.

      • JamesTBagg@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        The best way I’ve ever heard it described, “It’s the gun that forgot to become obsolete.”

    • JamesTBagg@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      The M2 is almost as old. Both are still in service around the world. Both are John Browning designs.

      • ElmarsonTheThird@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 hours ago

        It will never stop being funny to me that both the M2 and the 1911 are (according to scifi-fantasy franchise Warhammer 40.000) still in use in the 41st Millennium.

      • copd@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        I’m not sure why this suprises people.

        M2 Browning was bolted to basically everything american in ww2 and that was 80-90 years ago. It’s an old weapon

    • SSTF@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Ummm acktually the A2 developemnt began in 1979, which makes it 45 years old.

        • SSTF@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          Nah, the design of the A2 is uniquely different, if we want to be technically pedantic.

          • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            9 hours ago

            May I introduce you to the concept of technicalities.

            Using this example to illustrate, technically the AR-15 and the M16a2 are the same platform, just with a few minor changes like the furniture. I mean we’re not considering the M4 a completely different platform just because of the feed ramps, are we? The second you swap from a quad rail to a free float system does it cease being an ar15? No not really, it’s still the same gun, but there are minor changes that only matter on clone rifles (which are usually not 100% anyway, why you only have two pinholes hmm?)

            So, technically the A2 is different from the A1, and technically the A1 is different from the first ar15s with the addition of the forward assist, but technically they’re also all the same platform, at least close enough to say they’re the same thing. Thus: “Technically.”

            Thank you for coming to my technicality Ted talk.

            • SSTF@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              few minor changes like the furniture

              And the fire control group, and the barrel design, and the reenforcement on the back of the receiver. The redesign of the sights is not merely cosmetic as fixed sights are more tied to rifles than removable. With those, and the other changes all standardized into one design.

              • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                4 hours ago

                And that somehow makes it a different platform than before, which is why they called it the m16a2 instead of the m17? We’re talking the Rifle of Theseus here.

                So if I put together some magpul flippy bois, an FRT, a pencil barrel, and a Hoffman lower, is it not an ar15?

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    19 hours ago

    Nam was fifty years ago, I think most people would think Hueys and M16s when asked that question.