Assault Weapons Ban 386
An anonymous reader writes "With all the Constitutional arguments that appear on /., perhaps some readers might be interested in this BBC Article about the expiration of the Clinton assault weapons ban. Both presidential candidates have spoken in favor of it, but no one is willing to vote to keep it."
One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of those issues which wouldn't be complicated if we could sit down and work out a reasonable comprimise, but of course that's not how we work in America anymore. Gotta stick with either-or's, and the other side are a bunch of wackos or nutcases. But, even though I know it's gonna get my ass flamed, I'll take a swing at it. I'm not scared. I got my aesbestos underoos on.
Obviously guns don't cause people to shoot each other, there are more complex reasons for it. That said, however, it's the access to high-capacity weapons (like the ones that were banned) that enables these folks to go out and kill half their highschool. Preventing gun makers from building these guns obviously makes it tougher for people to get them, which is a Good Thing -- nobody has a legitimate reason for owning a 30 round clip.
But the GOP are all a bunch of whores to the NRA, who don't let reason creep in on their paranoia about pinko lefties coming to take away their guns and kick over their stills or whatever. They, combined with a few people on the extreme left who don't think people ought to be able to hunt or whatever, combine to paralyze the whole damn debate.
But then we're down to the apparently unresolvable gun control back and forth. But that's okay, 'cause I got my fireproof underoos. Flame away.
The ban didn't affect crime (Score:5, Insightful)
The ban is sunsetting because it didn't really do any good and nobody is willing to risk their political career on renewing it. Even if it did come to a vote, I'm not sure Kerry would risk the swing state votes by voting to renew it. Bush would probably be forced to eat his words when it comes to signing it.
The whole thing is one great political football. The assault weapons I'm worried about are those that are being used on both sides of our failed war in Iraq [badnarik.org], not the ones sitting in a gun collector's safe.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...common-sense...
Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not GOP
I am not a member of the NRA
I don't hunt
Not only should the Assult Ban be lifted, I should be able to buy a tank if I so wish. The Constitution didn't give the right of arms so that we could protect ourselves from rabid dear, steat thugs, or cheating wives...it was so we could protect ourselves from the tyranny of an oppressive government.
And a couple dozen dead kids is an acceptable loss for my freedom. A shame our society has become to pussified to fight to keep it.
Good riddance to bad law (Score:4, Insightful)
The so-called "Assault Weapon Ban" was nothing more than a feel-good measure that had nothing to do with crime or safety. All it did manage to do was annoy and/or piss-off people who buy or own guns. No appreciable benefit to any constituency, and a big downside to a rather sizeable constituency. It is no wonder that most politicians don't want to touch this issue, and Bush knew full well that it would never end up on his desk. If you ignore the Democrats in "safe States" like California, who can soapbox on this issue all day without consequences, it is a "third-rail" issue everywhere else whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.
The 1994 Congressional blood bath pretty much assures that gun control won't be touched again for a long time.
Re:Of course the candidates are in favor! (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets see:
Shay's Rebellion
Whiskey Rebellion
Fries's Rebellion
Nat Turner's Southampton Rebellion
John Brown's attack @ Harper's Ferry
Civil War
Waco
Come on people, owning a machine gun doesn't mean crap when the other guy has smart bombs.
The whole idea that we should own guns to keep our own government from opprssing us is just wishful thinking, quit dreaming of Rambo and crack a law book.
Re:Terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
And the proper term is magazine, not clip. A magazine fully encloses rounds of ammunition and feeds it into the weapon's action. A clip is a piece of metal that holds rounds of ammunition together for easier loading into a weapon's magazine.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you think we have the 2nd Amendment? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with sport weapons.
It is, very simply, to avoid oppressive regimes from ever dominating the citizenry by disarming them.
A gun that could only shoot non-humans would have absolutely nothing to do with the spirit of the Second Amendment. Gun rights were guaranteed specifically so that *people* could be shot as a last ditch resort.
I have no interest in ever owning a gun -- the benefits provided by the Second Amendment are present as long as enough citizenry own guns. However, I strongly support allowing citizenry access to assault weapons.
Note that guns simply guarantee Hobbsian "rough equality" between people and soldiers -- if soldiers have assault rifles, people also need assault rifles. I do *not* support allowing people to have weapons that allow massive amplification of killing power above that of a soldier as long as they strike first -- like bombs and the like. Assault weapons? Sure, I'd say that it's pretty much essential to allow people to have assault weapons.
Take a look at Switzerland -- they have almost no limitations on the weapons civilians can have. You want a howitzer, you can have one. And if you're a male and above a certain age, you *must* own a rifle -- you're considered part of the militia. As a result (even aside from the fact that Switzerland has never been invaded) Switzerland has a low gun crime rate, much lower than the United States. It's hard to glamorize a tool that everyone has (e.g. you could stick someone in the eye with a pen, but everyone has a pen and it isn't very exciting). Furthermore, it's a dissusasive factor to someone who might consider committing a crime if most people are walking around with weapons. Sure, maybe you can pull out your gun and hold up a bank, but you're nothing special -- it'd be like doing so with a knife when everyone else has knives. Or with your bare hands when everyone else has bare hands -- you're going to be hurt by similarly-armed people.
I could *maybe* even see gun laws banning handguns. But never assault rifles. Assault weapons are the core of the Second Amendment.
Three points (Score:2, Insightful)
2. None of the guns on the ban are fully automatic guns. Those have been illegal since the 1940's.
3. So what if some one shoots a bunch of people with a gun that looks like a hunting rifle or a military style rifle. The results are still the same.
Kill the criminals and stop attacking the guns.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:3, Insightful)
The function of the Second Amendment, which is to avoid totalitarian regimes hated by the populace, is provided to me even if I *don't* own a gun, as long as enough civilians own weapons comparable to those provided to the military.
Note that I don't want civilians to own *bombs*. The idea is to provide rough equality between a soldier and civilian -- in a fight, one soldier == roughly one civilian. Bombs mean that whoever strikes first can have a massive disproportionate advantage. Guns act as a moderating factor, bombs as a destablilizing factor.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you can explain away New Zealand or Switzerland. As Michael Moore figure out with Bowling for Columbine, it's not the guns.
The idea of citizens controlling the same weaponry as the military has several purposes.
Regardless of your personal opinion on what the law should be, the highest law of the land says we are a nation of gun owners. It is my belief that the original intent of the 2nd Amendment did not allow for all of the current laws and regulations concerning firearms. I personally have never submitted to a background check and refuse to participate in registration programs.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:2, Insightful)
If you can ban bombs, you can ban types of guns. There's no constitutional prefernce to one type of weapon over the other.
Personally, I think civilians owning guns is not permitted by the constitution, and that militia means a state army. But I do think this is an area where compromises can be reached.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I'd be about pissed if my tax dollars were wasted on a war on a STYLE of weapon that accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but make people purchase the hunting rifle version of the guns that ONLY LOOKED more dangerous. Especially if YOU COULD BUY THE FUCKING THINGS ANYWAY. Man. I'd be even more pissed if you could do it over the Internet.
Thank You.
Good riddance (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been a very ill-conceived and widely misunderstood law, and I will be glad to see it go.
The affected weapons are mostly ones that outwardly resemble military firearms, while having nowhere near the firepower. Rather than firing bursts of ammunition like their fully-automatic counterparts, the so-called assault rifles fire one shot at a time, with less powerful ammunition than a hunting rifle. Pistols affected by this law generally had outward designs similar to fully-automatic submachine guns, but had only the same caliber and rate of fire as an ordinary handgun - with much bulkier size and weight.
A criminal would be an idiot to choose a firearm from the affected class of firearms. They would use an ordinary handgun, or if they really sought something more powerful as defenders of the legislation claim, they would smuggle in some firearms that actually WERE military grade instead of just superficially looking like it.
In practice, the only people affected by the law have been legitimate gun collectors, who disagree with the law but struggle to comply with it. What shape grips constitute a "conspicuous pistol grip"? When the law requires a barrel attachment to be "permanently affixed", do you weld it, super-glue it on, pin it, use lock-tight? Interpret the subjective phrases differently than someone at the ATF, and you become a felon.
The other major provision was a limitation on ammunition magazines ("clips") to 10 rounds. Much like 640k of memory, this might seem to be enough for anybody. But, given that those who are most in the know about defending oneself in life and death situations (police, military, federal agents, etc.) generally carry larger magazines than this themselves, even with superior training to worry less about missing their target, perhaps there is something to be said for having a couple extra rounds just in case.
The other flaw with the 10 round limit is that it was based on the arbitrary assumption that no civilian would ever need more than this to protect themself, but provided no guarantee to back this up. Why did the law not include language guaranteeing that before any civilian had fired the 10th shot in a life-and-death situation, police would had arrived on the scene and taken their attacker into custody?
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep.
I never really felt the need to own a gun. But, when both the house and senate passed this bill (1994) I went out and bougt a shitload of the subject material before it got signed into law.
I felt that as soon as my government started limiting guns was about the time I needed to get real interested in owning some.
So now... the only guns I own... are assault weapons, purchased as a direct result of this laws passage.
Go figure.
Good, bad, and mostly useless (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, gun configurations were banned, like large-scale magazines, weapons with built-in cleaning kits, bayonets, folding stocks, etc., however the individual sale of many of these components wasn't completely restricted so in many cases you could buy an SKS or AK-47, purchase a folding stock separately, and configure the weapon on your own. It was way too easy to get around this.
The premise behind the law was sound: Who needs a "hunting" weapon that was exclusively designed for killing people in wartime? Who needs a folding stock or a 30-round magazine for hunting deer? Unfortunately, the passage of this bill didn't really reduce the availability of these weapons or their components in my opinion. I've always been able to go down the street to the gun shop and buy a cheap Chinese-made AK-47 for less than it costs to pick up a modest hand gun.
What I found most ironic about the Brady Bill and Feinstein Amendment, was that the NRA blew the consequences of this legislation way out of preportion and suggested its passage was going to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. The facts since then have indicated otherwise - the more-stricly-enforced background checks have reduced the number of firearms getting into the hands of people who were prohibited from owning them. At the same time, the proliferation of many of the assault weapons has not been noticeably diminished. Ironically, the NRA, for all its anti-commie, freedom-lovin', second-amendment protecting propaganda, vehemently pushed for the opposition of this bill which mainly would have had the most profound impact on the substantive importation of communist-Chinese-manufactured assault weapons which have been flooding the US. This is a case of the NRA agenda helping directly fund a communist regime - irony of ironies, and a talking point they never brought up in all their dialogue on this law.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:2, Insightful)
No, in this modern day and age, with the US military as dominant, and bearing as much high tech military equipment as it does, a standing army is quite pointless. That's why the people now fighting the US are not bothering to stand an army - they are being subversive, they are blending with the populace and striing at soft targets. That's right, to stand against the US military the most effective thing to do is the blend in and make terrorist style strikes.
But wait, if you did that, you can be utterly certain that the US government would label you a terrorist faster than you can blink. Right now their busy reworking their intelligence and security agencies to fight exactly that new kind of war. I don't think you'll stand a chance.
The second amendment was a very fine thought, and utterly sensible at the time. In the modern environment however, it just isn't relevant anymore. You aren't going to overthrow the government with assault rifles - not when you don't have a goodly portion of the US military already on your side (at which point, why are civilians messing with assault rifles!)
Your best chance of effecting true political change is in mass civil disobedience. In a truly united movement that simply says "No!". Carrying an assualt rifle will make no difference - in fact, your message will be far more effective if you stand without it. Take a lesson from Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. That is how to fight the government in the modern world.
Jedidiah.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, both assault weapons and handguns did exist in the Revolutionary War period. They weren't identical to the same as the guns we have today, true -- the concept of an automatic weapon didn't exist. An assault weapon was a bayonet-equipped musket. But it is necessary to provide someone an automatic weapon to keep them competitive with someone else with an automatic weapon. From the link above: Thomas Jefferson, for example, noted in 1803 that "None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined, is therefore at all times important." He later commented that "...we cannot be defended but by making every citizen a soldier, as the Greeks and Romans who had no standing armies."
The constitution is quite clear- well ordered militias are allowed arms.
I'll include another link [neusysinc.com] from the site. Sure that's what they meant?
The stuff people spout about it being so people can revolt is pure bull, its a moddern idea espoused by a few far right nutjobs in the past century.
A *modern* idea? How do you explain the Revolutionary War? The writings of our Founding Fathers?
But stopping fellons from getting them easily, requiring registration, making resell illegal (unless reregistering), and limiting the amount of damage a gun can do before reloading are all decent comprimises.
Do you know how Castro took power? Cuba had a gun registry. Immediately after his coup, he took a collection of soldiers around and confiscated everyone's guns. If you have three guns registered and you don't turn over three guns, you were executed. He did so before people had time to organize. Then, he retained control of the military, which controlled the arms. Hence, control of the nation.
As for felons (people who have been convicted of a felony -- let's not try to isolate ourselves from them so that we can mistreat them without feeling bad about it) -- I could see limiting gun access to felons that have committed a felony using a *gun*. But how does it benefit anyone to have, say, an embezzler denied gun rights?
Heck, I'm still amazed that in most states, people in jail for committing a felony are denied *sufferage*. That's astounding (and a major coup for the Republican party -- drug crimes have eliminated much of the black vote).
Re:Why do you think we have the 2nd Amendment? (Score:3, Insightful)
Try to overthrow the US government with assault rifles and whatever else you can scrounge, and you'll quickly be labelled a terrorist (to make sure you are alientated and hated by the rest of the country), then quickly and efficiently wiped out by whatever level of force is required - and the force available to the US military scales up remarkably high, you aren't going to win.
Unless you have a serious bargaining chip on hand - serious explosives on a large scale, nuclear weapons, or chemical or biological weapons, you are going to get nowhere. Have any of those, and you'll just ensure a whole lot of civilians get killed when the US government uses any and all force necessary (sacrificing patriotic Americans if required) to rid the world of dangerous terrorists.
You will not strike a functional military balance that will give you any chance in the modern world. The second amendment, as sensible as it was when written, just doesn't mean the same thing in a world with modern weapons and military. Holding weapons will not give you any real advantage against the government.
So if weapons aren't any good, what is? Your weakness. Take a lesson from history, and learn how to effect change in the modern world. Civil disobendience can be effective if it is on a large enough scale. They can't brand you terrorists if you never carry weapons, never make threats, never hurt anyone. They can't just wipe you out without a large chunk of the US population losing faith in their government and joining the movement (presuming that your initial movement is big enough not to be labelled a cult or what have you). That's your only way forward now, the guns just don't mean anything anymore.
Jedidiah.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have never seen before as naive statement as this. After the Roman Empire collapsed, Europe was ruled by barbarian tribes' laws, which had the same opinion on murder as you do: that it was up to victims' family to deliver justice to the murderer. Firstly, they had vendetta. This was bad, because one murder resulted in a lot of further deaths (murderer, his relatives, some people from victims side, etc.) So the custom allowed to close the deal with a money transfer. Opportunity of earning lot of money made victims' families feel even more vindictive. Somehow, the chiefs and kings decided that it was not The Best Thing To Do (tm) and decided to take away the right to punish the murderers from the people and institute a "monopoly on punishment" as we have it today. You may say "just another example of Europen despotism", but this was a wise thing to do. When murder is not punished by the state, people will only feel safe when they have enough strong family to defend them. People with enough money would fell free to kill, and later bribe the victims' relatives to forgo vendetta. The society would reduce to small isolated outposts, distrustful of outsiders, because of the possibility of "hit and run" kill (if the guy flees, nobody else apart from the victims' family will risk his head to help to catch him).
If that does not convince you, go check examples of countries which today have no rule of law, where murder is not punished by the state. They are: Iraq, Chechenya, Afghanistan. Not the best places to live under the sun, eh?
Sturm Gewere (pardon my German) (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a small, relatively under-powered sub machine gun. Small cartridges, so more can be carried because more are wasted.
The Ban didn't effect "assault rifles", because those are already covered by the 1934 and 1968 laws.
As was stated by the people who wrote the "assault weapon" ban, they were counting on the American public being duped into thinking that the rifles effected were "assault rifles", Machine guns, Actual military hardware. What we got was pointless regulation which demonized cosmetic features and created massive confusion and cost for everyone involved.
Compare cartridge power of the dreaded AK-47, the 7.62x39, with the "standard" American deer rifle cartridge, the
Then there is the stupidity of prohibition. Every time it is tried it fails. Alcohol prohibition created the environment of criminal gangs, mafia, "organized" crime that is alive and well to this day.
Few people call for alcohol prohibition, because "it failed." Many people are calling for an end to drug prohibition, because "it's failing." Yet many of the people who believe it's stupid to prohibit peaceful drug ownership call for prohibition of peaceful gun ownership. Where is the logic in that?
There isn't any logic, of course. Any prohibition in a so-called "free" society is doomed. Either the prohibition is ignored, or the freedoms that would allow the law to be ignored are taken away.
There has been continual prohibition in the US since January 16th, 1919. Government has grown titanic, organized crime are almost peaceful compared to the jack-booted thugs who hide behind their badges. "Citizens" are tracked like cattle, allowed freedom only in limited, carefully regulated bounds, while the police kill at will.
And all because we forgot the most important part of the Declaration of Independence:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The existence of prohibition is, on its face, such a usurpation. The fact that there are many prohibitions right now merely demonstrates that our masters are indeed persuing invariably the same object.
Bob-
Re:Why do you think we have the 2nd Amendment? (Score:5, Insightful)
If an administration ever attempted to turn the United States military against said United States citizenry, there are several differences from Iraq:
(a) Many members of our military would probably not follow orders to kill US citizens.
(b) The target count is overwhelming. Our military isn't designed around carpet-bombing any more. An angry populace doesn't have long tank convoys to destroy.
(c) Resupply wouldn't exist. How long can you keep an A-10 flying without a populace providing fuel and parts for it?
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war! (Score:5, Insightful)
I always get annoyed when discussions about the Second Amendment come up and everybody immediately starts thinking about gunpowder. That's not what it's about.
The Second Amendment (Right to Bear Arms) is not a result of the wildly successful 1776 Sportsman's PAC. It wasn't meant to authorize individuals or groups to assassinate government officials in case they went insane. And it wasn't an attempt to ensure people could keep trading old flintlocks like so many Disco albums from the '70's.
It was an acknowledgement of a problem which faced the fledgling Colonies at the time, and is still quite relevant today.
You can pass a law making it illegal for people to keep and bear arms, but the people most dangerous to the survival of the Nation aren't going to listen. Because of this, we need to be sure this nation can survive even if we face an enemy that doesn't play by our rules. In this respect, outlawing guns works against us, in that it allows us to implement policies that, if the subjects had guns, we could never get away with. So instead we outlaw the practice of disarming the populace.
It's a way of saying to prospective government organizers: "if you want to run this place, you have to figure out how to make it work without taking away people's weapons. If you can't, you're not worthy of running this place. Period. Just like if you can't figure out how to run this place without favoring one religion over another, or shutting down the free press, or silencing your critics, or preventing peaceful assembly, or violating peoples privacy, or searching their homes, documents, things, or imprisoning people without charges or due process, or holding onto a suspect indefinitely without letting him see a lawyer, or torturing prisoners, or trying to make a Federal Law to ban powers reserved to the States, then just go away, because you're not up to the job. Sure, running the country is easy if you can do that stuff; but we have higher standards."
The rise of gun violence should not be seen as being caused by the availability of guns as much as it should be viewed as a failure of our society to remain violence free in the face of weapons availability. Don't curse the NRA, they're just the weather vane.
Should we read the Second Amendment to say that we should all be packing porta-nukes? For the safety of the Nation, of course. No. What it means is that we should strive to build a country that can survive even if our next door neighbor decides to pack a porta-nuke. Because, the reality of the world is (and will always be) that our next door neighbor just might be packing a porta-nuke.
In a world like this, the only possible way to be safe is to first make sure that nobody in their right mind would have a reason to light-up their porta-nuke, and second to understand that occasionally we will encounter a person or two who isn't in their right mind, who's going to kill a lot of people and cause a lot of damage (kinda like one of those Hurricanes) and that we better just be prepared for it to happen, and be prepared to deal with it when it does. An approch which says "we'll prevent a hurricane from ever happening here" can only be followed by "we don't need FEMA anymore, now do we", which shows clearly how backward such an approach is.
On September 11th, 2001, the U.S. saw an example of an attack which some claim represents a new kind of threat to this nation. But was also saw a flawless demonstration of the kind of defense against that threat which our Founding Fathers hoped we would deploy, and knew even then would be effective. On Flight 93, the attack failed, not because of some smart weapon posessed by the U.S. army, or because some airport screener matched-up two names on a No Fly list, but because of the democratic defense;
Certain COSMETIC "features". (Score:3, Insightful)
But no flash suppressor. Big whoop dee doo! Like I need a flash suppressor.
As for the clip ruling. You just count your shots. When you have one left (in the chamber) you drop the old clip and slot a new one. With a bit of practice, you can do this in under 2 seconds.
Also, the larger capacity clips are still legal (just as you've pointed out with the weapons themselves). But private citizens are only allowed to own ones from before the "ban".
The only thing(s) this "ban" did was:
#1. Jack up the prices on the weapons and clips
#2. Give everyone who didn't read it a warm fuzzy false sense of security and accomplishment.
Gun control works... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to posses arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." -Adolf Hitler
Who needs an Anything? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to pick on you in particular (except, well, that I am picking on you in particular
The idea that things not specifically "needed" (as determined by whom?) are suspect or should need to be justified for some reason has implications that I don't like, most especially when applied blithely to weapons (potentially, at least) of self defense.
Who needs plastic bags for groceries? After all, (conventional) plastics rely on petroleum, and contribute to the dissipation of natural resources. [Ignore the considerations of price, convenience, shipping convenience, reusability, etc, that might lead a person or a business to prefer them.]
Who needs more than one child? The world has enough people, and any more mouths to feed are a net loss. If you want more, too bad, others have decided you don't need any. (Forced abortions in the western provinces of China.)
Who needs more than 2000 calories a day? It's unhealthy to overeat, and people who overeat (and then develop health problems) are a burden and drain on society.
Who needs more than 10 shirts? Can't those people just wash more often? They're depleting resources and spending their money inefficiently, and hurting all of us.
Who needs sharp knives? They're dangerous in the hands of lunatics [bbc.co.uk].
Who needs a computer that is powerful enough to play a significant role in designing nuclear weapons?
I wish these questions were more rhetorical, but obviously some of them are not! And of course, who needs a Xerox machine? (Illegal to have such a thing during most of the history of the Soviet Union.)
Another snide but serious answer to "Who needs a gun designed to kill people?" is, "Well, the Swiss seem to think that they do, and they don't get invaded very often." Also, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, when they were being rounded up for extermination camps and -- bravely but ultimately unsuccessfully -- fought back with what weapons they *did* have. I don't mean to activate Godwin's Law here, I hope I've stayed just shy of it
To further tread that line; the question is not whether governments ever grow tyrannical and oppress the people they're supposed to be serving (at least when they make the gesture of claiming to be a servant in the first place), it's how often, to what degree, and under what circumstances. The Third Reich is only one of many such in the last 100 years. Stalin and others killed either more in absolute numbers or as a percentage of their country's / dominion's population.
Cheers (uh, if that is the right closing note),
Tim
Re:Military vs. Citizen (Score:3, Insightful)
And how would that citizen having an assault weapon affect his decision?
Is it easier for an American soldier to fire at an unarmed (and disobedient) civilian, than at an armed (and disobedient) civilian.
My opinion (Score:1, Insightful)
If you're calling magazines "clips", you're stupid.
If you think that the 2nd Amendment is just for protecting hunters, you're stupid.
If you think that registration won't lead to confiscation, you're stupid.
If you're that damned stupid, why the hell are you even participating in this discussion?
Re:Nobody has a legitimate reason for 2 GB of RAM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nobody has a legitimate reason for 2 GB of RAM (Score:2, Insightful)
It's people like you that make everyone else who is literate on the planet look bad. I hate to break this to you, but the soldiers you talk about....they're your friends and family ass hole. If you seriously think average Americans, most of which just joined the military for college money, are just going to suddenly turn on everyone they know and support a stalanistic lifestyle because some idiot who knows how to kiss babies told them to, then you need to check yourself into a psych ward.
The situation that existed when the second amendment was written was during a colonial period where your "government" was a monarchy that was 4000 miles away. If you seriously beleive that anyone is capable of reverting America back to a monarchy or dictatorship, once again, seek professional help.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're a regular Joe Citizen, arming everyone is in your best interests. For every asshat who goes postal, there'll be thousands who are JUST as armed and capable of stopping him.
If you're George Government (name chosen for the King of England, before anyone starts in on that) then it's in your best interests to only allow those YOU control(i.e. the military) to have weapons.
There will never be a time when NO ONE has weapons. Human nature centers around conflict. Even if the entire country, police, military and all, are disarmed, external forces will be armed. If they don't attack an obviously helpless target, then they will certainly find ways of making those arms available to the criminals within the disarmed societies, and you're back to the same lose-lose situation.