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I get that, it just seems absurd that someone on a no-fly list would be allowed to buy an assault rifle.

This.

How easily can you modify one of the AR15 platforms to create a fully automated weapon?

Quick Google shows quite a few hybrid(?) legal conversation kits. So its all well and good saying it's only a semi-automatic, but it's meaningless when it's perfectly easy to fire multiple shots in quick succession anyway and you could probably illegally convert it anyway.

It feels a bit like the old joke about asking for directions and being told "well I wouldn't start from here".

I get that, but only if the no-fly list was anything other than the half-arsed "has a name that sounds a little like a suspect we once knew but actually it's just because they are a bit brown" that it is. cf. FBI lists etc...

For the 'Merkins, the second amendment is all about bearing arms* for when their gubmint need a slap-down.

Having that right arbitrarily curtailed is the gubmint taking the piss.

* where arms == guns, and nobody can agree on what a militia is, or when one can have one, or who can have one, other than various supreme court / state rulings.

Sorry to be this white knight, but autism is a condition not a mental illness.

It often correlates with depression due to issues with socializing (in general people with ASD cannot read bodylanguage and other unspoken signs as well) and other issues.

Still not right to go off and try to kill somebody, mind, but there's a lot of misunderstanding :)

For me, the whole thing could be tidied up best by getting some formalisation around what a militia is.

I'd suggest at a minimum:

1. training
   
2. internal registration
   
3. a uniform
   
4. a minimum number of people in the group
   
5. some sort of organisation (I.E. someone willing to say I'm in charge of these reprobates)
   
   

but meh, the US thinks that one person on their own is a militia.

/confirmed

True... To be honest it's kind of a moot point – the impact damage is similar either way but the AR15 isn't meant to be a spray and pray.
The fact is, the bullet leaves the barrel at 3x the speed of a 9mm pistol and the gun barely recoils doing so. It's meant to be as lethal as possible and buying one seems to be way too trivial.

One idea would be to impose regional restrictions (must be stored at a gun range if in a city unless for hunting in the country on a farm or something, then can be kept in a safe) on top of more extensive background checks that take weeks, not minutes.

Just make them more of a pain in the ass to get and keep. That would make them more collectable and thus less likely to be used on people.

It should be like getting a driving licence in Finland.

The 2nd amendment says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" in addition to the militia clause (if it is a separate clause).

Fuck me I was being ironic you moronic tit.

Happy Tuesday to you too! :)

Actually, moron is a deprecated term for mild mental retardation.

your a deprecated term

It rhymes so it stays

I always thought based on the original wording it was actually the other way around;

-"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

That's really what I think is nuts about using the 2nd Amendment to validate gun ownership. To go up against State military forces you need fully automatic wepons, RPGs, maybe some surface to air misiles, and miscellaneous explosives. If you're arguing for anything less then you shouldn't be allowed to evoke the 2nd Amendment in your argument.

@MrDrem That's a clever way to approach it. The packaging is almost as important as the regulation. Maybe enact a "flag lover law" with a load of hidden onerous regulations.

That's not the second amendment - although it's better English.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Those fucking commas.

My point was simply it's not simple and the best we can do as people who don't live in the US is accept that it's madness, but it's a particularly potent clusterfuck of madness.

I don't think the US wants a load of heavily-armed militia groups who are organised but bored roaming around.

You'll eat your words when the Zombies come.

They can argue about what a bunch of long-dead dudes meant two centuries ago until they are blue in the face, any intellectually honest examination of what a 'militia' is should arrive at something that looks a lot like the US National Guard.

What the gun lobby don't want to face is that their own definition of a militia looks a lot more like Timothy McVeigh.

I don't think the US wants a load of heavily-armed militia groups who are organised but bored roaming around.

You mean beside the one already wandering outside a Walmart wearing assault rifles?

Any intellectually honest examination of what a 'militia' is should arrive at something that looks a lot like the US National Guard.

Or Switzerland, they have lots of guns, and a mandatory military training.

So you get called out for stigmatising a group of people and that's your response. You seem a swell guy.