seawasp | (Reply)

From:

Actually, if you're talking about decent-sized magazines (say 10+ rounds), it's more a difference of one second to TEN seconds for most people. Trick shooters can approach auto-fire rates, but most people are going to manage one shot a second, maybe two, instead of the between ten and twenty per second that a full-autofire weapon can reasonably reach. (Miniguns can manage FIFTY, but no one outside of an action film's ever going to use one of those as a carriable weapon).

In combat with people shooting at you, an extra 4-9 seconds is a LOT. Even someone fat and slow like me can cover over 50 meters in 9 seconds, and in a building that means getting out of the room or finding reasonable cover a LOT easier.

If it's irrelevant, then it shoudn't be mentioned as though it was (which specifying "semi-automatic" does), and those trying to ban guns should just say they want to ban guns. This will not work,and given current political climate could lead to vastly worse events, but I'd prefer people be straightforward about what they want.