GUN CONTROL

is being able to hit your target

10 rounds in thirty seconds at 7 yards
from a unmodified beretta 92 
not a masterwork weapon,
but very reliable

IF using a DnD style damage system
THEN guns in RPGs need to do more damage;

…

From Animal Faceoff .. .

A ferocious male lion is able to transfer about 2/3^rds of its body weight behind its claw (moving less than 20 mph);

thereby delivering about 300 foot-pounds of force
(about the same energy as a modern 9mm handgun round). 

In contrast, a DnD longbow (d8 damage)  has more than 7 times the velocity of a great cat’s claw yet only delivers about 1/8^th the kinetic energy (about 40 foot-pounds).

Even a lowly .22 long rifle delivers over 100 foot pounds of energy (d10).

 

“From inside fortifications, the gun has no equal among weapons.  It is the supreme weapon on the field before the ranks clash, but once swords are crossed the gun becomes useless.   One of the virtues of the bow is that you can see the arrows in flight and correct your aim accordingly, whereas gunshot cannot be seen.  You must appreciate the importance of this.”         
  A Book of Five Rings  by Musashi  

 

l also  considered ranged combat ROF (rate of fire) to be abstract
as the rate of fire with even 19^th century firearms is remarkably fast.  
Against stationary, man -sized targets at typical ranges (7 – 20 yards) ,
with 95% accuracy,
I can deliver 10 lever action rifle, 10 single action revolver and 4 shotgun rounds
 in 30 seconds or 3 melee rounds …  

I consider myself of above average quickness (13 Dex?) -
The fastest guys in my club will double or triple my ROF. .. .


I will leave the debate to background checks and magazine capacities to politicians and pundits ..


Spengler,  AsiaTimes, 19 Dec 2012

"The slaughter of children is sufficiently rare in the West that it overwhelms us with horror and grief. There have been five school shootings in Europe during the past 10 years with 10 or more dead, and two in the United States - the 2007 Virginia Tech incident and the Sandy Hook shootings. Despite its much stricter gun control, Europe has been the scene of more mass school killings than the United States. We Americans would be fooling ourselves to think that stricter gun laws would help.

"Meanwhile, we in the West suppurate in imagined mass killings. The only surprising thing is that we are surprised when the fantasy turns into reality in the case of a deranged individual. The horror genre consumes a tenth of Hollywood's total output of films and television programs. The zombie apocalypse, with its images of repetitive killing, is the subject of the most-popular cable series ever, AMC's The Walking Dead.

"And that doesn't count the action films (and video games) whose main content is the mowing down of numerous assailants by a heavily armed hero. We should not be surprised at incidents like the Sandy Hook horror. We should be surprised, instead, that deranged individuals do not cross the line between fantasy mass killing with greater frequency. "

Jeffrey Shapiro, Wall Street Journal 13 March 2013

“As a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who enforced firearms and ammunition cases while a severe local gun ban was still in effect, I am skeptical of the benefits that many imagine will result from additional gun-control efforts. I dislike guns, but I believe that a nationwide firearms crackdown would place an undue burden on law enforcement and endanger civil liberties while potentially increasing crime.The D.C. gun ban, enacted in 1976, prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officers from carrying a firearm in the city. Residents were even barred from keeping guns in their homes for self-defense.

“The gun ban had an unintended effect: It emboldened criminals because they knew that law-abiding District residents were unarmed and powerless to defend themselves. Violent crime increased after the law was enacted, with homicides rising to 369 in 1988, from 188 in 1976 when the ban started. By 1993, annual homicides had reached 454.

“ Since the gun ban was struck down (Heller 2007), murders in the District have steadily gone down, from 186 in 2008 to 88 in 2012, the lowest number since the law was enacted in 1976. The decline resulted from a variety of factors, but losing the gun ban certainly did not produce the rise in murders that many might have expected.”