This is a portion of an e-mail received from one of my friends. I think I know how I'll respond to her question, but would be interested in what you suggest I should say. "I would feel really insecure if we followed England's example and banned guns, especially in this age of terrorism. However, convince me we shouldn't keep the general public from owning military style assault weapons and ammunition magazines larger than 10 rounds." She's very liberal, but not anti-gun as I know she owns at least one for self-defence purposes. She lives in what's sometimes called a "transitional neighborhood", meaning neat old houses in a convienent location with yuppies and drug dealers living next door to each other. Hence, the gun and the local police precinct house on speed-dial... Anyway, I would appreciate your opinions and suggestions.
1) The 2nd Amendment says "shall not be infringed." If you don't like it, amend it. To ignore it is a dangerous precedent to set for the other amendments. Because of the 2nd Amendment, it is irrelevant whether society would be better or safer if certain guns (or certain magazines) are banned. 2) The original purpose of the 2nd Amendment was so that the people would be able to have the military guns of the day. Banning military style guns defeats the whole purpose. 3) There aren't enough crimes with these types of guns to really warrant the discussion. She needs to get past the hype of movies, rap songs, and the Brady bunch. 4) Of the few crimes that are commited with these specific weapons, most could be done just as effectively with common hunting rifles/low capacity mags. 5) Banning certain guns sets an arbitrary line in the sand. What should be banned and what shouldn't? How did they come up with 10 rounds (why not 9 or 11?). First, you can only have a gun that is 10 rounds, then 8, then 5, etc. First semi-AWs banned, then all semi-autos, then pumps, etc. 6) Why should citizens be limited to 10 shots when criminals will use as many as they want? Again, show me some examples where people are committing crimes with over 10 round magazines where they couldn't have done as much with the low capacity mags. 7) People usually think of an armed citizen defending himself against a mugger, not always so. What if you have to defend yourself from a mob or multiple armed attackers? Should they take certain rifles from you or limit you to 10 rounds? While it seems rediculous now, whose to say that in the distant future (hundreds of years maybe) we don't have to overthrow the government or we have a foreign invader invade the U.S. Banning guns now could leave our future descendents defenseless. 9) Gun banners will never be happy until civilians are totally disarmed, banning some guns just furthers their goals. It legitimizes and rewards their actions and allows them to move on to banning other things. These are just a few I came up with off of the top of my head.
10) For every type of guns there is an excuse that could be used to ban them. a) The guns is too small. b) The gun is too big. c) The gun is too cheap. d) The gun is too expensive. e) The gun is too acurate. f) The gun is too inaccurate. g) Etc, etc, etc. It's kinda like some of the arguments the antis use against civilians carrying guns. Some circular arguments: You shouldn't be able to carry concealed because everyone has the "right" to know you are carrying. You shouldn't open carry because it alarms and freightens people. The goals here is to ban carry totally. Like the off-limits places to carry, more...more...more...until you end up like Georgia. One place being banned leads to another...and another...until we end up like England eventually banning guns almost totally (were most cops can't even carry)...but not if GCO has a say in it. I don't know if any of that makes sense. Okay, end of rant!
Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime Revisited: Clustering, Measurement Error, and State-by-State Break downs JOHN R. LOTT Jr. State University of New York - Department of Economics -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- February 4, 2004 Abstract: This paper investigates several contested issues over how concealed handguns affect crime. Whether accounting for robust errors with clustering or reducing measurement error in the crime rates, the results consistently show large drops in violent crime rates after right-to-carry laws are adopted. By six years after the law, murder rates have fallen by 9 percent, rape by 11 percent, and robbery by 7 percent. Keywords: Crime, Deterrence, Guns
I like #1 and #9 to keep it simple. #10 falls under #9 Citizens that legally own simi-auto high capacity rifles are some of the biggest advocates out there of gun safety and enforcement of laws where guns are used in a crime. We need to focus on getting criminals off the street and not on infringing on Constitutionally protected rights. To me its a hobby to collect, build and shoot these great guns. I have met and made many friends building and shooting these guns over the years...all respectful and honorable folks. You should take her to a range and let her meet a few. She probably drives a SUV ...does she really need that to have that?
Thank you all. That's pretty much what I was gonna say, but now I'll just send her the link to this thread and avoid all that typing... Ya wanna find the easiest way to do something, ask the laziest person you know to do it. Oh yeah! That would be me!
...you might also point out that when the Founders were writing the 2nd, the "arms" they were referring to were the military "assault rifles" of the day...the Brown Bess used by the British and the locally made rifles of the colonists, which were copies of the British style rifles Just another point to throw in. As has already been stated, the real reason is because the words are "the right of the people...shall not be infringed" - meaning messed with in any way, shape, form or fashion