Here are a few thoughts from an article on gun control:
No other passage in the US Constitution is as hotly debated as the Second Amendment. In full, this controversial sentence reads:
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Although most people focus on the “bear arms” part, the real key word is “militia.” The thing is, in 1791, no-one really knew if this whole “Union” thing was going to work out. Many of the States distrusted each other, and everyone distrusted big government. The possibility of invasion was frighteningly real, and the Second Amendment was put in place to make sure that a citizen’s militia could defend the principles of the constitution. What the Second Amendment didn’t do was grant any drunken asshole the right to stagger into a gun shop and buy an assault rifle without a single background check. In 1939, the Supreme Court even ruled that:“The Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with the view of its purpose of rendering effective Militia.”
By 2008, they’d extended that to cover self-defense in the home—something else that doesn’t require a high-capacity magazine and the ability to kill everything within a three block radius. But that’s all they’d extended it to: there’s no constitutional “right” to carry a concealed weapon, no “right” to use armor-piercing bullets—just the right to defend yourself against intruders. And as Stephen King famously said: “if you can’t kill an intruder with ten rounds, you need to go back to the shooting range.”
Assault Weapons Aren’t “Sport”
Very few of those who support gun control guys want an absolute, total ban on weapons. Personally, I think that if someone wants to buy a rifle and go hunting in the weekend, it’s their business and has nothing to do with me. Equally, if you simply feel safer knowing that you have a shotgun in the house to defend your kids, fair enough. But there’s no conceivable reason to own an AR-15, a pump action shotgun, armor-piercing bullets or a high-capacity magazine. Firing a semi-auto at a piece of cardboard is no more “sport” than using a bazooka to play pool is “leisure.” It simply appeals to the fraction of the population who dream of re-enacting Scarface’s last stand, every time they get a letter from the IRS.
We Have Too Many Already
The United States has more guns per capita than Yemen—but that doesn’t even begin to describe our love of guns. According to data published in the the Guardian, gun ownership in the US is literally the highest in the world. Not in the “developed world,” or the West; in the whole world. That makes Americans more heavily armed than Russians, Pakistanis and people from Afghanistan .Even Latin American countries overrun by drug cartels, with murder rates comparable to war zones—such as Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala—have fewer guns per capita. Even literal war zones, like Somalia and D.R. Congo, have less heavy weaponry. When you feel more inclined to arm yourself than guys who live in a failed nation state where the average life expectancy is less than fifty years, it might be time to think about slowing down.
Arming Everyone Won’t Help
Of course, we could just as easily go in the opposite direction. If everyone was armed, no mass shooter would stand a chance, right? Not exactly. When Mother Jones crunched the numbers, they found that successful interventions by armed civilians had occurred in only 1.6 percent of all mass shootings since 1980. In other words, it happened a single time in thirty years. In two other cases, armed civilians managed to subdue a killer after the shooting had already happened, which you could argue is still a good thing. But plenty of less-fortunate people who tried to get involved have only wound up adding to the casualty list. In 2005, for example, Brendan McKown and Mark Wilson both tried separately to confront an armed shooter. McKown was blasted into a coma, while Wilson was instantly killed. The trouble is, you might be an ace down the range—but when you’re in the middle of utter carnage, it’s another thing altogether. That’s why one of the few possibly successful interventions—at the end of the 2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting—came from an ex-cop. Training makes a hell of a difference.
Assault Weapons Won’t Save You
The last big myth about owning enough firepower to rival Pablo Escobar is that it’ll protect you when the government comes. It won’t. A psychopathic Federal Government would have the entire US Army at its disposal, along with enough firepower to destroy the planet several times over. The best anyone making a “last stand” could hope for is to get out alive, instead of re-enacting the finale of the Waco Siege. All that security assault weapons and their ilk might offer anyone is security of mind—which honestly doesn’t seem worth it, stacked up against everything else on this list.
My daughter was working at the Las Vegas Concert on Sunday. She and her crew are still sorting through the mess and trying to make sense of what happened.
There is no sense to be made of this!
Guns are made to kill.
Guns generate HUGE MONEY.
The next time a gunman opens up on a crowd with an assault weapon I hope it's in Washington in Congress.
No other passage in the US Constitution is as hotly debated as the Second Amendment. In full, this controversial sentence reads:
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Although most people focus on the “bear arms” part, the real key word is “militia.” The thing is, in 1791, no-one really knew if this whole “Union” thing was going to work out. Many of the States distrusted each other, and everyone distrusted big government. The possibility of invasion was frighteningly real, and the Second Amendment was put in place to make sure that a citizen’s militia could defend the principles of the constitution. What the Second Amendment didn’t do was grant any drunken asshole the right to stagger into a gun shop and buy an assault rifle without a single background check. In 1939, the Supreme Court even ruled that:“The Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with the view of its purpose of rendering effective Militia.”
By 2008, they’d extended that to cover self-defense in the home—something else that doesn’t require a high-capacity magazine and the ability to kill everything within a three block radius. But that’s all they’d extended it to: there’s no constitutional “right” to carry a concealed weapon, no “right” to use armor-piercing bullets—just the right to defend yourself against intruders. And as Stephen King famously said: “if you can’t kill an intruder with ten rounds, you need to go back to the shooting range.”
Assault Weapons Aren’t “Sport”
Very few of those who support gun control guys want an absolute, total ban on weapons. Personally, I think that if someone wants to buy a rifle and go hunting in the weekend, it’s their business and has nothing to do with me. Equally, if you simply feel safer knowing that you have a shotgun in the house to defend your kids, fair enough. But there’s no conceivable reason to own an AR-15, a pump action shotgun, armor-piercing bullets or a high-capacity magazine. Firing a semi-auto at a piece of cardboard is no more “sport” than using a bazooka to play pool is “leisure.” It simply appeals to the fraction of the population who dream of re-enacting Scarface’s last stand, every time they get a letter from the IRS.
We Have Too Many Already
The United States has more guns per capita than Yemen—but that doesn’t even begin to describe our love of guns. According to data published in the the Guardian, gun ownership in the US is literally the highest in the world. Not in the “developed world,” or the West; in the whole world. That makes Americans more heavily armed than Russians, Pakistanis and people from Afghanistan .Even Latin American countries overrun by drug cartels, with murder rates comparable to war zones—such as Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala—have fewer guns per capita. Even literal war zones, like Somalia and D.R. Congo, have less heavy weaponry. When you feel more inclined to arm yourself than guys who live in a failed nation state where the average life expectancy is less than fifty years, it might be time to think about slowing down.
Arming Everyone Won’t Help
Of course, we could just as easily go in the opposite direction. If everyone was armed, no mass shooter would stand a chance, right? Not exactly. When Mother Jones crunched the numbers, they found that successful interventions by armed civilians had occurred in only 1.6 percent of all mass shootings since 1980. In other words, it happened a single time in thirty years. In two other cases, armed civilians managed to subdue a killer after the shooting had already happened, which you could argue is still a good thing. But plenty of less-fortunate people who tried to get involved have only wound up adding to the casualty list. In 2005, for example, Brendan McKown and Mark Wilson both tried separately to confront an armed shooter. McKown was blasted into a coma, while Wilson was instantly killed. The trouble is, you might be an ace down the range—but when you’re in the middle of utter carnage, it’s another thing altogether. That’s why one of the few possibly successful interventions—at the end of the 2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting—came from an ex-cop. Training makes a hell of a difference.
Assault Weapons Won’t Save You
The last big myth about owning enough firepower to rival Pablo Escobar is that it’ll protect you when the government comes. It won’t. A psychopathic Federal Government would have the entire US Army at its disposal, along with enough firepower to destroy the planet several times over. The best anyone making a “last stand” could hope for is to get out alive, instead of re-enacting the finale of the Waco Siege. All that security assault weapons and their ilk might offer anyone is security of mind—which honestly doesn’t seem worth it, stacked up against everything else on this list.
My daughter was working at the Las Vegas Concert on Sunday. She and her crew are still sorting through the mess and trying to make sense of what happened.
There is no sense to be made of this!
Guns are made to kill.
Guns generate HUGE MONEY.
The next time a gunman opens up on a crowd with an assault weapon I hope it's in Washington in Congress.
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