https://youtu.be/1Jr4AotbBUM

TTAG reader JG clocked the recent vehicular homicide in Stillwater, OK and Las Vegas, NV and started the a petition to “Require background checks on vehicle sales and ban the purchase of high capacity assault vehicles” at petitions.whitehouse.gov. So far, it has 27 signatures . . .

Over 30,000 people per year on average are killed by motor vehicles, add to that 240,000 people hospitalized by vehicle accident injuries each year and 3,000,000 people treated and released each year from auto accidents. This information comes DIRECTLY from the CDC and is irrefutable evidence that cars hurt and kill more people in the United States of America than firearms by far. Add to that the recent happenings in Stillwater, OK and Las Vegas, NV and we are beginning to have the forming of assault vehicles. These villainous vehicles must be banned from the use on public roads in the United States to protect the people of our republic. Universal background checks should also be implemented for all drivers before allowing the purchase of any vehicle to prevent more tragedies.

24 COMMENTS

  1. They’d be willing to go along with all that for cars. What the “liberals” would never tolerate nowadays would be to treat alcohol the same as guns. From a statist/utilitarian point of view, alcohol causes infinitely more havoc in our society than firearms, but they would be unwilling to give up their alcohol freedom. This proves most of them have no true humanitarian aim in the destruction of our firearms freedom. They want to feel compassionate and “progressive”. They want a nanny state to rule over us, with them at the velved gloved helm.

  2. When discussing gun issues with fence sitters,I have had some success with framing gun control as similar to alcohol prohibition. A gun prohibition and the creation of a firearms black market would create a similar but greater havoc in society than alcohol prohibition did in the 1920-30’s.

  3. I really hate the comparison between guns and cars. Cars can be just as deadly when the intent is to harm or kill. Felons aren’t prevented from driving cars. The mentally ill are not prevented from driving cars. You can buy or rent cars from anyone, anywhere. If persons on the “no fly” list are prevented from buying guns, you can be sure the same won’t be true for cars. So the gun laws aren’t more lax than those for car usage and ownership.

    • And I am really tired of people who don’t understand that it is not a comparison of cars and guns, it is a metaphore. Like all metaphors, it is imperfect, but it helps people who aren’t into guns to realize how stupid some of the laws and gun control ideas really are.

  4. Well, the muzzle energy of an evil “military-style assault rifle”, one presumes with the folding thing that goes up, is around 1,300 ft-lbs (.556 x 45mm) vs. something over 400,000 ft-lbs* for an SUV at cruising speed.

    Or an SUV has in the neighborhood of 300x the muzzle energy of a typical AR bullet.

    Nobody needs to be throwing around that much energy.

    (*)
    .556 x 49 muzzle energy from here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzzle_energy

    Formula for muzzle energy:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzzle_energy
    http://guns.wikia.com/wiki/Muzzle_energy

    Weight of an SUV, approximated to 3,500# from here:
    http://cars.lovetoknow.com/List_of_Car_Weights

    There are 7,000 grains to the #, from here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_%28measure%29

    65mph is 95fps, from here:
    http://www.convertunits.com/from/mph/to/fps

    3,000# (rounded down) * 7,000grains = 21,000,000 grains in an SUV. Or 210 * 100,000 grains. Since mass is not squared in calculating muzzle energy, I can pull out the 100,000. So the muzzle energy of an (unladen, let’s say European) SUV is 100,000 * muzzle energy(210 grains, 95fps). I just like to get inputs in the neighborhood of expected range when using a programmed calculation – dodge the over / under-flow errors.

    The calc for 210 grains @95fps yields 4ft-lbs:
    http://www.ballistics101.com/muzzle_energy_calc.php

    So, first, throwing your slug by hand isn’t all that energetic, even if you are a major league pitcher.

    Second, that puts the muzzle energy of an (unladen, European) SUV at something over 400,000ft-lbs.

    That’s gonna hurt.

    • Correction: “5.56 x 45”

      I make transcription errors more often since my hospitalization last year – lingering symptom to work-around.

  5. I’m all for pranking whitehouse.gov but if you’re going to start a petition of this sort you should make sure you don’t have painfully obvious spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. Otherwise it just plays into the stereotype of gun rights people as uneducated yokels and gomers.

    Just Sayin’.

  6. Be careful what you sarcastically wish for. With autonomous cars on the horizon, there are those who are pushing to outlaw the ability to drive your own vehicle (Elon Musk is one). I’d love to know what happens if you end up in a Rodney King riot situation or a natural disaster happens and you have to navigate the vehicle around obstacles too complicated for the computer to understand.

  7. And they need to ban those shoulder things that go down, too, that allows these spree roadkillers to stay in their seats if they hit large volumes of pedestrians that would slow their assault vehicles down abrubptly. What are they called again… seatbelt shrouds. Nobody needs anything over a 4 cylinder. Enough of these evil “sporting-purpose utility vehicles”.

  8. As usual, 2A supporters can’t be expected to lift a finger to send a simple message to the White House. Either that or TTAG only has 40 readers.

    I got three people who don’t read TTAG to sign it.
    Which means I’m personally responsible for 5% of the nationwide signatures, if I include my own.

  9. You don’t need 4×4 pick up truck to buy groceries. These high capacity military style vehicles have no place on our streets.
    What are you compensating for?
    Just call a cab and let trained professionals do their job.

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