“I know nothing at all about this other than it scares me so I want to tear up the Bill of Rights, and put millions of my fellow Americans in prison- just to make me feel a tiny bit safer. “:rolleyes:
I believe that the desire for more firepower doesn’t really go away, so there is no reason to expect a freely chosen self-limitation to the arms race between “criminals,” “law enforcement,” and “law-abiding citizens.” (Or alternatively, since this is the USA, the “race arms race” between “persecuted” blacks and “law and order” whites, who fear and demonize each other.) The law is not there to say, “Do what you were going to do anyway.” The law is there to act as a limit on people’s behavior where they would not limit themselves.
Guns would be collected by law enforcement and melted down.
As for, “new ones from coming in from Mexico or even Canada,” at the moment the bigger issue is the USA exporting illegal guns to Mexico. If we get to the point that Mexico has more of a gun trade than we do, I guess we’ll have to cope. Personally, I’d be glad to stop the flow of illegal arms to Mexican organized crime, something the USA seems unwilling or unable to do effectively at present.
The first thing that needs to happen is the education of all people involved about guns: handguns, rifles and the mythical assault rifles.
The Bill of Rights doesn’t have to be taken as a perfect unchanging whole. If we analyze it and judge it critically, we can refine it. We really could modify the First Amendment enough to give us tools to fight political advertising quid pro quo, and ditch the Second Amendment altogether, and still have other protections. Even new ones for that matter!
If we are so savage that all that protects us from abusive arbitrary power is a superstitious belief in a divinely ordained Bill of Rights which must not see one jot nor tittle changed; then we’re incompetent to manage a democracy.
(As I have probably said elsewhere, I pretty much believe that we really are this mentally incompetent and superstitious, and I wish a takeover by benign tyranny were possible; but absent such a possibility, I have to try to make democracy work as best I can. That means trying, however futilely, to educate people beyond blind faith in old politicians mistaken for god-prophets.)
:Sigh: Yes, education about guns is important. Too many people seem to think they have “stopping power,” or can knock someone down, or kill a person instantly like a Star Trek phaser.
A gun is a long-range hole punch powered by fireworks. That’s it. At long range you’re likely to miss your target. At short range you can kill someone effectively, but they may be able to grapple you and counter this. Shoot me at short range and before the blood loss gets me I may close on you, disarm you, and make you eat one of your own slugs. Tell me again how it keeps you safe.
Assault rifles aren’t mythical. The term is used loosely for various full-auto rifles, and more narrowly for a use-defined category of automatic rifle in US war doctrine.
[QUOTE=foolsguinea]
Guns would be collected by law enforcement and melted down.
[/QUOTE]
And illegal drugs can be confiscated and burned or otherwise destroyed. Simple.
At the moment, guns are relatively cheap and abundant in the US, with no one trying to ban them across the entire continent. I imagine, though, that if that changed, without that fundamental shift in attitude by the populace, that this would no longer be the case. In which case, illegal guns coming in from Mexico or Canada would be a serious issue. After all, if there was money in it, someone is going to be interested in making that money. And at a guess, there would be plenty of money in it, in about a thousand years when the current supply of guns have been rounded up and melted down. 
Thank you for this and well said. Some of us have raised the Founding Fathers to mythic, all-wise and all-knowing figures. They were creatures of their times, as are we. They were aristocrats of an 18th century agrarian society, not all of their doctrine is relevant to a post-industrial 21st century society. Thus all this speculation of what was meant by the authors and all this poring over the Federalist Papers is quite as irrelevant as reading the hieroglyphs in King Tut’s tomb.
I’m not getting what the ban on handguns is supposed to accomplish. People will still have rifles and shotguns even if the millions of handguns in existence can be collected and illegal sales of new ones can be stopped (which I think is doubtful). What problem created by handguns will be eliminated instead of continuing with different guns?
Please take discussions of the Second to the current Second Amendment thread if you would. Your, er, point here has already been addressed there multiple times…and addressed in myriad threads on that subject in the past as well.
In THIS thread, please discuss how you’d ban handguns (or guns in general). You can, of course, discuss how you’d get rid of the Second, but I’d rather not hijack this discussion into that topic, especially when there is already a discussion about that going on in another thread that’s more suited to it.
Thanks.
Think about your hypothetical for a second though. In this fictional US, the law was legally and Constitutionally changed to ban handguns. That right there tells me there’s been a huge shift in cultural mores. Did people call for a handgun ban? Did all politicians suddenly have a change of heart? Does the NRA still exist? I don’t think you can simply say “Handguns are banned, but everything else stays the same”. In my response, I assume that there would be a significant number of people supporting this law, to the point where it can’t be ignored that because the law has passed, most people want this, and therefore would have a stake in its enforcement.
I would say this would have the opposite net effect when compared to drugs, that it would be much MORE effective than criminalizing illegal drugs. Yes, drugs illegal and people still do them, but drugs are much easier to keep, move, and make. Most people can buy a heat lamp and some fertilizer, but most people cannot manufacture the parts necessary to put together a working gun. Plus, drugs are a consumable and you always need more of it if you’re using or selling. With guns, only the ammo is really a consumable, so there would be less of a market for new guns than there would be for ammo/drugs comparatively. And of course, even when you factor in smuggling, you can’t just stick a glock up your colon and walk past security so easily.
Perhaps he’s proud that he’s never had to be placed in a situation in which he needed to use a gun? Proud of the fact that he lives in a situation in which guns are not objects of protection but objects of offense? Seriously, why do pro-gun people think everyone has to have guns or know about them? To me, guns symbolize a might-makes-right mentality, violence, and bloodshed. I’m proud I’m not a gun owner the same way I’m proud I don’t own a bible
Because it’s not like something that it took courage or great moral resolve to do. We don’t have a draft. Marksmanship isn’t a required subject in public schools. This is on a par with taking great pride in never having drunk Dr. Pepper or something else ridiculously trivial and completely voluntary.
Hey, we have free speech zones now, so how about gun free zones? This can be directly linked to gun violence statistics. If your community can get its violence down, it can have its handguns back. 
My proposal that I don’t support at all:
- Outlaw the manufacturing and import of all handguns. Handgun definition would need to be done by somebody who actually understands firearms (probably a combination of barrel length and overall size I would guess).
- Outlaw the manufacturing and import of all standard handgun caliber ammunition. This will impact a lot of rifles that use the same ammo, but that is an unfortunate side effect.
- Outlaw ownership within 1 year of of #1, with a legit buyout on all existing firearms. This will be costly, since you will get some beautiful weapons and some $50 pieces of junk. The one year window is to allow people to sell / ship out of country.
- Mere possession becomes a huge fine (5x the buyout rate). Use is 10x the fine (hits people who hide one for self-defense). Use in crime is a 25 year sentence minimum.
The buyout numbers would be critical. You need to make it worth it to me to hand over my collection (more than their current value). That will get the largest number out of circulation - cheaper to buy them all for obscene amounts than to hire the jack booted thugs to collect them. Combine that with a high cost of keeping them, plus a window for gun shops to purchase and ship out of country and you can reduce the number of available handguns in the US. Carrot and Stick.
People are proud for much less courageous things than gun ownership. Most people are proud of their country, or their race, despite never having had a say in its membership. If you were born in the US, how can you be proud of the US since all that requires you to remain here is to do nothing? At least with guns, one can be proud that one has be able to make that choice to not use one and be touched by an instrument of violence.
I’m mildly proud that I’ve never used meth. Does that count?
I’ll fistfight anybody who says you’re not a hero.
:rolleyes:
:dubious:
Most of those who want to continue the war on drugs are profoundly ignorant about marijuana. Most who are against gay marriage are simply ignorant about homosexuals.
In general, most “prohibition” type laws in this nation are based upon ignorance, so I am not sure if this is something to brag about.
Proud of not being a gun owner is one thing- proud of being so ignorant about them you can’t even make an informed argument is another.
Ignorance is never anything to be proud of. And being a strident hater of something you are ignorant about is even worse.