254
Federal court strikes down New Jersey ban on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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politics
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Well, there are Uzis
Maybe, but that extra length ensures a higher level of accuracy at a distance. Compare a stock rifle without a scope's accuracy at a thousand yards to a stock handgun at a thousand yards. Both might be inaccurate at that range, but the scope of the inaccuracy would differ greatly. That "shouldering" the rifle adds stability.
You could still technically be utilizing a 5.56/223 or 762/.30 pistol with a 16” + barrel upper to achieve parity in velocity. The pistol lower is what dictates if it’s a rifle or pistol platform. Albeit, the gas system length would have to match. I may be mistaken but I’d wager, a 8.5-11.5 “pistol upper” with a suppressor would provide similar velocity in adding 5-8 inches (absent any rifling).
Technical arguments aren't going to work, I don't think. It's similar to how an old style machine gun with no select fire and an open bolt is easy to make; the trigger just gets out of the way and the guns stops Not Firing. Then the world gets select fire which adds complexity, gets better mechanisms which add performance at the cost of complexity, so on and so forth.
I know I'm speaking to the choir here, but it's like with Glock and their latest gen models. They tried to address the wish.com switches that were readily available, and they changed the slide somehow so the old switches wouldn't work. New switches were out within days. Ignoring how additional complexity typically comes at a (small if they're doing it right) reliability cost, there isn't a level of complexity you can add to a standalone firearm that'll make it unusable using technology alone.
So, we use legal means and wind up with a damned patchwork of laws. Some stuff is legal in some states and illegal in others, some states are "stand your ground" and others are "duty to retreat," and it's all subject to interpretation. They've already changed the forms so that the sex field is specifically the one assigned at birth, and red flag laws can be turned against whoever isn't in power in a locality. Safe storage laws can't be enforced without home inspection and are a tax on the poor, depending on interpretation. If pennies matter to someone they won't be able to afford a safe with X amount of weight and possible structural improvements to support the weight if you're on a crawl space. Apartments won't be possible at all.
To the uninitiated the 3D printing stuff looks like magic when it's really not as hard as it seems. Likewise firearms aren't as complicated as some people seem to think. How legislation targeting either of the groups of people continually gets written and pushed people people who clearly don't know anything about it is a failure of the ballot box and can be fixed there.
The other thing that seems to get lost on folks pushing gun bans are that a lot of the developments for making them lighter and easier to use have opened doors for people who'd have a harder time using a heavier firearm with large recoil.