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I hope I won't be inaccurately categorized for simply asking these questions. Maybe if I preface my comments by saying my family has guns, I can shoot a gun, I agree with the use of guns for personal protection, and I've voted for Reagan, GHW Bush, GW Bush, and Bobby Jindal, you won't assume you know my position on everything. My questions are:
1) are there good reasons to have assault weapons available to the "common man?"
2) is there a reasonable way to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics?
What is an assault weapon?
I don't pretend to be a weapons cognoscente, so I admit I used a blanket term; maybe better terms would be semi-automatic or automatic weapons?Originally Posted by ChampKind
I don't believe automatic weapons are available to the general public. Part of the problem CK is getting at is that the term "assault weapon" has been used to categorize some very normal types of weapons. We have to be careful about terms that are used because they are emotionally charged.
One point I'll make in answer to your original question. What is the point of "the right to bear arms"? Is it hunting or home defense? No. It's to protect oneself from the power of the king. It's so the people have the ability to resist a tyrannical government.
Having said that, I realize that we create some of our own problems with this. I don't know how you stop these kinds of events. One does wonder, though, why they've ramped up so much in recent years.
I agree with what you've said. But while you (we) continue to fight the second amendment battle, we may already have lost the war to resist a tyrannical government because of the overwhelming power of taxation that has been granted to government and the immense enforcement power that the government has assumed through the creation of the IRS.
The only way to prevent the rise of, or resist, a tyrannical government is to choke its access to money.
The 2nd Amendment does not specify which guns someone can/can't own. I think we should be able to own fully-automatic weapons, in whatever calibers we want. At the time of the adopting of the Bill of Rights, the average citizen owned rifled muskets, which was the same or superior to what the standing army carried. In other words, citizens had access to the latest, state-of-the-art weaponary. That should be true today, as well. The 2nd Amendment is clear.
Unequevically, agree.
Bonne and Clyde, and John Dillinger would probably agree with you.
This discussion happens every time one of these terrible tragic events take place. Perhaps it is good that we discuss events,but we never hear about the thousands of times a year that gun owners stop crime and protect themselves and others. We will never even begin to know the number of times a year that crimes never happen because a gun might be present. If this criminal had driven his car down the length of the the line of people outside there would not be a single call to ban cars. This man was a scientist who created bombs. He could have killed in many ways!
In short,as always,it is not the weapon,but the person who uses it!
+1000
I don't pretend to know what cognoscenti means, so I'll accept your admission at face value.
The difficulty in this issue is defining what is superfluous and what is reasonable. The most deadly weapon the coward wielded was his mind. History shows us that those hell bent on death and destruction will achieve it.
Most of the gun control advocates will say that we need to ban hi-cap mags. Look at the planning this guy put into his shooting! He would simply had more mags...or obtained outlawed mags illegally.
We must have a very good reason to restrict freedom. The 5 nut-cases in 300,000,000 is not a good enough reason to me...because they will still commit the acts. We'll just make them jump through more hoops that they will gladly jump through. In the
end though, they will still kill because that is who they are.
plural of cognoscente, which refers to a subject matter expert; connoisseur
I appreciate your response. I agree it should take a lot to restrict freedom. And I can agree with your 5/300,000,000 statement--at least until I consider the question "what if one of my loved ones was slaughtered?" That's where I get stuck because it's hard to imagine I would think the killer had a right to his freedom.
To me, this is the problem with the way liberals think. They can't separate emotion from practical/logical thinking. They worry too much about the individual, and not about the whole. The thinking comes from a good place, but
I appreciate your response. I agree it should take a lot to restrict freedom. And I can agree with your 5/300,000,000 statement--at least until I consider the question "what if one of my loved ones was slaughtered?" That's where I get stuck because it's hard to imagine I would think the killer had a right to his freedom.
We can restrict weapons as much as we want, but people will still find ways to kill others. That's the way humans work. Bad things happen, and we can't prevent every bad thing from happening. But is restricting gun rights good for the whole of the country? I don't think so. The government is supposed to be scared of it's citizens, and not the other way around. First we'll try to vote them out, and if that doesn't work, then the citizens must exert their control. That's why we have the second amendment, to keep the government from becoming too powerful.
Having said that, I do not own a gun. But I am glad that there are others that do.
When people were told of their slaughtered loved ones, they probably did not immediately, nor will they ever, think of that in a practical/logical manner.
Obviously, guns take lives and save lives. I wish there was a way to know the ratio of taken:saved with regard to guns owned by individuals--this should cue Tyler to explain how the lamestream media would never report that!
Per capita of population, yes. Actual incidents, no. But the number doesn't matter. The reason behind the shootings, wherever they are, is never because guns are available. It's the culture that person lives in. When you have a small homogenous culture like Canada and Norway, violent crimes are rarer than when you have a large heterogeneous culture, which gives you what you see in the U.S.
Two good sources to buy (or find free versions) for reading on the issue.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.p...=9780674016088
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/...bo6686900.html
Also, a surprising report form ABC. But it is Stossel so it shouldn't be that surprising. He has always done some decent reporting.
Luckily, they aren't making decisions about it then. It's when they continue to let it cloud their judgements later on because of how they feel instead of a practical/logical thought that it becomes a problem.When people were told of their slaughtered loved ones, they probably did not immediately, nor will they ever, think of that in a practical/logical manner.
Obviously, guns take lives and save lives. I wish there was a way to know the ratio of taken:saved with regard to guns owned by individuals--this should cue Tyler to explain how the lamestream media would never report that!
It would be impossible to determine that ratio.
And TT would be right, they wouldn't report on positive news about guns.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/...tant-gun-news/
And in relation to his last post:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/...ally-supports/
This is likely why Obama & Co. haven't made any comments about gun control (to go along with the furor they created after the Arizona shootings).
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