CURRENT TOPIC: Which categories of firearms/equipment might be subject to restriction/control?
I think we can all agree that the terms to use here are Revolver, Semi-automatic handgun, bolt-action rifle, semi-automatic rifle.
Suppressors reduce the noise signature, and as decibels are logarithmic, even a few decibels lower can cause much less hearing loss...and make it quiet enough to go unnoticed at longer ranges. Tinnitus is a real risk of firing a weapon indoors and close quarters. Permanent hearing loss is bad, too.
Revolvers are basically what they're going to be. Most will have a revolving chamber with six rounds, and of course, like all guns, varying calibers. You will typically see medium game hunters, for boar, coyotes, etc., carrying one of these in addition to a rifle -- this is because if you miss, graze, or fail to neutralize a boar or coyote, they may charge at you. Boar tusks can gore the arteries right out of your body, so you want something you can QUICKLY use that works almost entirely with barely-moving, mechanical parts. I have literally never seen a revolver misfire.
Semi-automatic handguns are basically "The problem." Most shootings happen with these. Typically single-action on the first fire (put more effort into the first trigger pull), then double action thereafter (less weight on trigger pull) as a safety measure. Capacities range from 8 or so with the larger calibers to 15 or so for the smaller calibers, double-stacked inside the magazine. These have anti-shock mechanics, so dropping them doesn't make them fire (anymore), safeties, both that will lock the trigger and cause it to flail instead of activating its mechanism. This is the weapon of choice for most crimes, most suicides, most self-defense. Easy to handle, easy to hold, and accurate enough at short distances that you don't need to be trained, strong, or precise to neutralize someone. Contrary to what people like to say, a bad guy with a gun isn't likely to be stopped by a good guy with a gun in a public place. Not now, not with more open carry, although more open carry MAY cause fewer public shootings for some types of crimes. I want more research on this.
Bolt-action rifles and shotguns are typically used for hunting, from small game like birds, to deer/moose. The rifles typically use a heavy caliber that will pierce far enough into the animal to break the skin on the other side without passing through the pelt on the other side at a chosen distance. These are unwieldy, though. Working a bolt for a follow-up shot is a pain, especially if you hit a deer but didn't kill it or disable it. Not only do hunters not like to follow them through the forest, they also typically don't want them to suffer, either. This is why semi-automatic rifles are slowly taking over hunting. Shotguns are also used for hunting, from birdshot to buckshot to slugs and just about anywhere in between.
Semi-automatic rifles are used primarily for hunting, as well. You can use the same calibers as bolt-action rifles, but with better capability for follow-up shots. Where before, in my boar example, you'd have wanted to drop your rifle, brandish your revolver, and keep shooting until it stops, you could typically keep shooting until it stops without any movement in between. An AR-15 falls into this category, but so do most rifles used for hunting, with relatively small magazines.
I favor a magazine maximum of 15. This halves your typical 30-round magazine in something like an AR-15, doesn't impact those who use rifles that don't quite look, but still act exactly the same, as an AR-15, doesn't impact police work, or handgun usage, They can still be used for hunting with minimal additional load, while maximizing the downtime of any active shooter, since we can't exactly stop them with gun legislation alone. There will be some push-back, but I think a well-reasoned argument from a a hunter might be able to get it across. No extra riders, no frills, just this is what we'd like, this is as far as we'll go on this, etc. We lose the PR war by acting when we don't know what the fuck we're talking about. We don't need another "You mean the shoulder thing that goes up?" moment. We don't need people dropping "fully semi-automatic assault guns" on the floor of the Senate. You know what that makes you look like? Like Inhofe throwing a snowball on the floor of the Senate.
Bump stocks should fall into "modifications" that make a gun automatic. It is effectively the same. You pull the trigger once, and the recoil feeds another cartridge and activates the same mechanic a trigger pull does, firing that cartridge, and loading another, and so on. It might be fun, but it is effectively automatic fire. HOWEVER, because they exist in the wild right now, and taking them from people will prove difficult at best, we should grandfather the ones that exist, and add them to AWB legislation ALONE. Heavy tax stamp for transfer, pricing them out of the hands of the great majority of people.
Suppressors are pretty fine where they are. A tax stamp, generally low availability. They'd be nice to have for home-defense, and the harm they'd cause is mostly exaggerated from my point of view. Because of how it interacts with a bullet, range, velocity are reduced, and their weight makes handguns unwieldy for anything outside of close quarters, where they'd mostly be used, anyway. I realize that the lower decibels might make it harder to say "that's a gun," but there are very few NFA items used in crime, and they ALL need to be registered with the ATF, with, if I'm not mistaken, an extra background check added onto it, plus re-registering it every so often, AND having to re-register it on transfer.
