[QUOTE=CatInASuit]
“I just want to” is a valid argument? That will be a US standpoint then.
What I would like to understand is if there is a modern reason why these weapons should be not banned regardless of the lack of onus on that side to prove its point.
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My take on it is this: the fact a weapon might be abused by persons with criminal intent is not a good reason to deny its possession to law-abiding citizens.
Contrary to what you seem to believe, people don’t have a “right” to have every whim that floats through their head come true. The individual rights we hold dear in the United States are all about protecting citizens from interference in their private affairs. It’s all about the idea that if somebody isn’t hurting somebody else, their business should be their own. It’s nobody’s business but mine what I read or write, what religion I adhere to, what substances I consume, or what gender(s) of people I prefer to have sex with. And it’s entirely my business if I want to keep a pistol, or a shotgun, or a semiautomatic rifle, in my closet.
If I cause harm with my weapons, or my car, or anything else, either through criminal intent or sheer negligence, then I have violated the rights of others and should be punished for it. That’s the root of the problem here: it’s not the fact that we have a lot of guns, it’s the fact that there are alarmingly large numbers of people who are perfectly willing to hurt and kill their fellow human beings to get what they want. Those people aren’t going to go away just because we pass some law restricting possession of the most expensive types of weapons.
It’s been pointed out plenty of times already: criminals prefer weapons that are cheap and concealable. Aside from the Constitutional objections, aside from the privacy objections, that is a simple reason why “assault weapon” bans are bunk: the vast majority of guns used in crime are dirt cheap, low-capacity pistols. People look at military style weapons and get all hysterical about how frightening they are, but even if their argument of “you don’t need that so we can ban it” held any water (on either account), they are seriously overstating the menace of these expensive “enthusiast” guns.
And while we’re on the subject of over-inflated hysteria: people keep talking about semi-automatic weapons as though they are especially formidable weapons for spree shooters or other homicidal wackos. I’ve got news for you: every gun is formidable against a crowd of unarmed people. There are precious few firearms that you couldn’t go on a shooting rampage with and do some serious damage.
I have a Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine in my safe. It’s a Soviet bolt-action rifle from World War II. It has a 5-round fixed magazine and fires the 7.62x54R cartridge, a cartridge that has been in use since 1891 and has more killing power than any “assault weapon” cartridge in existence. It is accurate out to several hundred yards. One person with a sack full of stripper clips and a modest amount of practice could produce an aimed rate of fire of about one shot every two seconds, even counting the time it takes to open the bolt and ram in a new stripper clip every five shots. In a crowded area, every shot could conceivably result in multiple injuries or fatalities. If the shooter maintains steady fire and keeps his distance from other people, who is going to get up the courage to charge and tackle a man with a weapon that sounds like thunder every time it fires and has a foot-long steel bayonet at the end?
There are no “nice” weapons. This is a fact of life. That people in the United States have the right to keep and bear arms is also a fact. It is also true that there are too many people who are willing to abuse that right to harm others – but the possibility for abuse is one cost of freedom; and surely we can find a better way of dealing with crime and violence than to seize every citizen’s liberty.
After all, there are so many politicians these days who are asking us to throw aside our other liberties, and principles of justice, in the name of public safety. They talk about the necessity of the “War on Terror” while doing their best to ensure that everyone is so frightened they will gladly give up their rights of free speech, peaceable assembly, privacy, and so on, all so we can keep bagging and torturing “terrorists.” It amazes me that so many people will rail against that kind of fear-based logic when we’re talking about habeas corpus, but will gleefully swallow it up when we’re talking about scary-looking guns.
[QUOTE=CatInASuit]
I have still yet to see someone tell me about an Assault Weapon that is non-lethal and designed for something other than killing, seeing as this is central to the ban in question. Anyone?
[/QUOTE]
It is not central. The idea that lethality is somehow a justification for a ban is entirely a distraction.
[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
What about my rights to be safe and not be killed by some whacko in a workplace-related killing? What about my children’s right to not be killed in a school shooting? Your hobby trumps that?
Face it - you want the scary guns. But that doesn’t trump my rights to be safe, as your scary guns are a threat to me.
[/QUOTE]
Really? My guns? Last time I checked, my AR-15 was still sitting in the safe. I guess I’d better check – oh, yep, there it is. Nope, not threatening anybody.
This particular mindset is probably what I object to the most: the idea that it’s okay to punish everybody for the crimes of a few. If some criminal is threatening your safety, isn’t that criminal the problem, and not me or any item of property I possess? It’s not just that gun control measures aren’t especially effective: it’s that saying “you can’t have X. You might be a criminal who will abuse it” is anathema to the whole foundation of our justice system wherein a person is held to be innocent until proven guilty.
The fact that property control measures disproportionately affect the law-abiding just adds insanity to the injustice.
For the record, let me state my opinions regarding licensing, safety training, registration, et cetera:
First and foremost, I do not have any objection to the idea that a person who owns firearms should be competent and properly trained. I don’t think any sensible person would object. However, I start to have a problem when you begin talking about establishing legal requirements and giving the government power over gun purchases and possession in order to enforce that requirement. It’s not that training isn’t a good idea: it is. But I do not think the benefits of mandatory training would outweigh the costs in terms of expanded government power, arbitrary bureaucracy, and the potential for abuse.
As for registration, I oppose that on grounds of privacy. Why should I, as a lawful individual, submit to be entered into what amounts to a “potential criminals” database? “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” is not an answer. As we saw in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there are plenty of authorities who will happily use an emergency as a pretext to begin confiscating weapons. Why give them a handy starting point?
But quite aside from that, it wouldn’t be effective. By and large, criminals aren’t really too keen on the idea of walking down to the police station to register their guns. Some localities (such as New York) even go all the way, requiring registration and “ballistic fingerprinting” of all new handguns sold, nominally to make it easier to trace crime guns. New York’s ballistic fingerprinting program, known as CoBIS, has been operating since 2001 at tremendous taxpayer cost, despite the fact that the data collected has never been used to secure a conviction for any crime. Similar programs in other areas are just as ineffective. This page has more information and cites, including actual police reports admitting the uselessness of such programs.
I more or less fall into this camp, too. And after all, why shouldn’t I? We already have more regulations on guns than we have ever had in history, and there are still people screaming for more. Why should I compromise on even the things I can agree are sensible, when there are groups out there only too eager to take every inch I give and stretch it into a mile? The extremists (and the people who follow the extremists in their ignorance and fear) have made compromise a losing proposition for me.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Why all the discussion on the issue of confiscating guns? If the laws/constitution change that that is what will happen then you, as a law abiding citizen, need to comply. You may hate it. You may rail against it but I suspect there are a number of laws with which you do not agree but comply with. Part of living in a society where the rule of law is supposed to prevail. If the society wants that to happen then that is what should happen. Democracy and all that jazz.
[/quote]
Actually, this is exactly the sort of thing our particular “Rule of Law” is supposed to prevent. Individual rights are protected so that the whims of a majority cannot oppress a minority.
If a majority of people were to “democratically” pass a law taking the vote away from black people, or Jews, or any other group you care to name, you wouldn’t think that was right, would you? Or if a majority of people decided that Christianity should be the mandatory state religion? How about if they passed a law requiring that all handicapped people be sterilized? Even if a majority of people wanted these things, they would not be right, and it would be the right and prerogative of the oppressed to fight back with whatever means they had.
Some things are just not the government’s business, no matter what a majority of the people may say. That’s why our Constitution was written the way it was, to explicitly define what the powers of a just government should be, and to (redundantly) enumerate some things that the government may not do. You are certainly mistaken if you think the key concept of our system of government is “if a majority says it’s right, it’s right.”
Meh. That was a lot more than I originally intended to write. TLDR version: It would be more effective to come up with real solutions to fight crime instead of guns. Keep yer grubby paws off mine, and don’t try to make me beg permission from a bureaucrat to exercise my rights. And gerroff my lawn! 