Contrary to the California Liberal stereotype that folks tend to associate with me, I believe not only that the Second Amendment should be upheld, but it should apply to all weapons to which our standing military has access.[footnote]Some might note that I was rather absolute in this declaration, not even excepting nuclear of biochemical weapons, both of which are in the United States military arsenal.To this I note that civilian weapons are not lesser, weaker versions of their military counterparts. To the contrary, they're usually better made, more rugged and more accurate, given the military version has to be mass-produced for the conscripts, concessions are often made in favor of the tooling process than the final product. Civilian weapons of choice are usually based on practicality for their purpose, and there aren't that many civil purposes for a nuclear detonation, or a human specific contageon without a cure. Of course, there haven't been any military purposes for such weapons either since WWII, and the fact that we still cling to them like a security blanket might give us pause. We'd probably be fine if we were to burn all our weapons-grade uranium and plutonium in power reactors, and burn our bio arsenals...well, just burn them to say we did.[/footnote] And frankly, I don't thing this would change the political skyline of the United States, were such an open law implemented. There just really isn't much use for an artillery piece, except maybe to pop targets on the countryside for giggles.
Gun regulation is what moderates talk about when they speak of
the nanny state[footnote]Though conservatives have stretched the derogative of the nanny state to include providing welfare benefits to those who need them. This is a sort of nannying we liberals believe is necessary to preserve the rights to some to ensure their survival and a modicum of lifestyle, this clearly applies in those many cases in which injustice has caused one an incapacity to sustain himself or herself and any dependents. What is less accepted is how frequently such injustice occurs.[/footnote]. The state has to trust its citizens to a certain degree, as the same needs people have for dangerous and powerful weapons they also have for dangerous and powerful industrial tools (such as motor vehicles), and we sometimes like to engage in intrinsically dangerous activities, such as climbing tall rocks or sailing out to sea or jumping out of an airplane with nothing but silk and twine to keep gravity from having its way with us.
The intent of a weapon's design and manufacture, whether as an instrument for hunting game, for protecting against dangerous fauna or even for open warfare against enemy infantry are all incidental to our own intent in owning them, or our right to do so, or to the danger they might pose to the community. Yes, weapons can be used to murder, but as Timothy McVeigh so adroitly IED [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_Bombing#Building_the_bomb]s to violent purpose than it is to manufacture guns. And in the meantime, in the US, cars kill far more people than guns, yet this is entirely contrary to their intent in use or design.
I would suspect that gun enthusiasts are the
least dangerous of gun owners, as they tend to be familiar with their weapons and the safety precautions one needs to take with them, and own them for their own sake, in contrast to some darker purpose. The most dangerous are radicals and extremists who acquire a gun for the purpose of using it, and have little interest in the weapon beyond how to make it put a hole in something else. They're the ones who are going to shoot something they didn't intend, most likely themselves. And they're not going to be slowed by regulations as they usually get their ill gotten weapons cheap from cops emptying out the evidence lockers of confiscated weapons. This is also the usual supplier for street gangs and the national drug trade.
MorsePacific said:
No citizen should own assault weapons. Period.
I'm surprised this argument would still be used. Most bans on assault weapons are done without any awareness of what makes something assault or otherwise. The term is generally used regarding battle rifles [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle]. Assault Rifles use a shorter cartridge designed so that a soldier can carry more ammo at once. Battle rifles (which are not banned by ordinance meant to regulate assault rifles) use full rifle rounds, which is to say each shot does more damage, and is designed to kill from sheer kenetic shock (as opposed to shock from bleed-out caused by lesser cartridges). In the military, we usually assign battle rifles to designated sharpshooters, and assault rifles to ordinary riflemen.
The now-expired
Assault Weapons Ban defined an
assault weapon as having a combination of a number of specific aesthetic components. It served (as it was designed to serve) as a
tiger repellant rock to pacify those who felt guns posed a greater danger than statistics revealed them to be. In this case, the term assault was used strictly as hyperbole. One would think, in this era of information, that we wouldn't be so naive. I would think, on this site where we are hyper-aware of our culture of fear and how fringe groups get marginalized by the mainstream, that
Escapists, especially, wouldn't be so naive.
238U[footnote]In the event that Escapist requires me to view a commercial before getting a code, I will simply not post. Depending on the frequency, this may temper or cease my future participation in the Escapist community. Apologies in advance, if this policy prevents me from replying to you when it is proper to do so.[/footnote]
