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Kirata -> RE: The 2nd amendment. So when do you ? (4/29/2013 10:34:13 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
We've been reading and hearing ad nauseum about how we simply must be able to keep our guns and our gun rights now even to the point where universal background checks are too much of a burden upon that right.
The problem we face with making progress in the gun debate, your post being just another example, is a vocal minority [1,2] who are impervious to reason, and who continually engage in misrepresenting reality with regard to both their opponent's positions and the actual effects of their own proposals.
It has been pointed out repeatedly, and studiously ignored, that there is no strong objection among gun-owners to expanded background checks. The objection to the bill that failed was that it amounted to an attempt to slip gun registration in through the back door.
it doesn’t have any of the protections that we have in current law for existing licensees...[the] legislation is hauntingly vague about who would physically keep information about American gun purchases, but it’s crystal clear that records will be kept. ~Source
Similarly, the assault weapon ban failed because it was nothing more or less than an another attempt to move us closer to banning guns altogether. And if that sounds like a slippery slope fallacy, take note that the proposal, which hitched itself onto the opportunity afforded by the outrage over Sandy Hook, went far beyond the previous one in the numbers and types of weapons to be banned.
Additionally, proposals banning so-called "high capacity" magazines are equally suspect. Many if not the majority of perfectly ordinary self-defense handguns have a magazine capacity greater than 10 rounds, and having those rounds gives you options upon which your life or someone else's may depend. In about 25% of violent crimes, victims face more than one attacker.
And, too, securing the safe escape of oneself or other victims can require suppressive fire, where your purpose is not to hit the bad guy but to deny him an opportunity to shoot. If you only have 7 rounds in your weapon, as for example per the now on-hold legislation in New York State, that option may not be available unless your pockets are stuffed with spare magazines.
I doubt you would find much entrenched opposition among gun-owners to banning extended pistol magazines (which extend below the grip) or rifle magazines of more than 20 rounds. But getting something passed was never the point. It was just an exercise in showmanship designed to paint reasonable people as drooling gun-worshippers.
Meanwhile, gun owners trying to offer good faith proposals have been met with ridicule and shouted down. For example, making it illegal for a government or business to declare an area a "kill zone" where any lunatic can walk in and start shooting men, women, children, and whole families with virtual impunity until someone, finally, arives with.... a gun.
Mother Jones did a hit piece in which it argued that killers didn't choose locations on the basis of them being gun-free zones [3]. This is of course irrelevant to the dead. The Mayors' study argued that gun-free zones were only a small factor in mass shooting cases [4]. But they included multiple killings in private residences in their conclusion. Among the mass shootings in their study that were in public spaces, more than half were in gun-free zones!
Too, I've personally suggested higher proficiency requirements for CCW permit holders. I'm tired of seeing someone blown away, and then afterward hearing the dumb-ass shooter say that he "didn't mean to kill him," but he "had a right to shoot." A firearm is a weapon, and its use requires skill. Whenever and wherever the option exists to stop an act of violence by inflicting a non-fatal injury, a licensed shooter should be skilled enough to take it.
Additionally, you misrepresent the position of gun owners when you make it all about defending against governmental tyranny. It is also, and in practical terms mainly, about the defense of self and others against violent crime. Defensive gun use in the United States has saved many more people from violent crime than criminals have succeeded in making victims of it [5].
That said, murder in the United States is principally a phenomenon of the violent sub-cultures that exist in our predominantly non-white inner-city neighborhoods. But if you listen to the anti-gun crowd and the incidents they emote over, you could be forgiven for getting the impression that we were knee deep in crazed white gun-lickers shooting up the country.
Meanwhile, in all the decades of violence endured by the residents of these inner-city neighborhoods, we've heard little to nothing from the anti-gun chorus. But when some white kids get killed, up they pop from behind every bush singing at the top of their lungs.
Frankly, I've seen little evidence of any genuine interest among the gun-hating crowd in either reducing violent crime or removing the opportunities that exist for more mass shootings. Theirs seems to be a different agenda.
K.
References:
1. CollarMe poll (53 respondents, 81% pro-gun)
2. Reason-Rupe Poll (Summary, link to data infra)
3. Mother Jones: The NRA Myth of Gun Free Zones
4. Mayors Against Illegal Guns: Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings
5. Defensive gun use (Summary, link to source infra)
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