I’m not in favor of banning handguns or hunting rifles, but I am in favor of banning or seriously restricting access to weapons that have no purpose other than to kill a large number of people in a short time.
SquareForceOne
July 23, 2012
Comment to The NRA claims 4.3 million members. The Brady Campaign might have under 29,000.
[Don’t ever let someone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]
For 2011, the number of firearm (those weapons with no other purpose than killing a large number of people in a short time) deaths was 32,163; the number of people killed by automobiles was 32,479. Sounds to me as if there’s a design flaw somewhere…
And two-thirds of those “firearm deaths” were suicides, which don’t exactly require “weapons with no other purpose than killing a large number of people in a short time”.
And just like how when the antis defined what an “Assault Weapon” was in the 94 law, and manufactures welded muzzle breaks onto muzzle threads, and ground off bayonet lugs, and started producing 10 round magazine, this was called “exploiting a loophole” rather than “Complying with the law”.
See they KNEW what an “Assault weapon” was, and knew is wasn’t defined in the law…but you can’t ask them to define it, they just KNOW what it is when they see it. (and with guns like the Mini-14, once they see a tapco-modded gun, they might change their minds)
I of course can’t think of a single firearm that “have no purpose other than to kill a large number of people in a short time”, but obviously THEY know of such a gun…but we’ll be damned if they’ll define it.
They CAN’T define it, because the SECOND they do, gunsmiths and manufacturers will come up with 100% legal models that have the same functionality but don’t fall under the definition.
They can’t define it, because to do so is to cement the goal posts in place.
When I think of a “short time” I think in milliseconds. No gun really fits that category, but I don’t have an issue with banning the civilian ownership of nuclear weapons with a yield of, say 100 kilotons or more. For the children.
I have always dreamed of building an underground house – as in a house in a cavern under a hill.
A 0.1 kiloton low-radiation nuke would be the ideal mining explosive.
Can I get it one in a suitcase?
At this point I think we’d be better off living on the Moon.
actually ….
25 years defending and prosecuting major felonies.
i’ve had cases involving death inflicted by guns, knives, bottles and assorted heavy blunt objects. know of a death inflicted by river rocks. and, cars make a pretty handy weapon, when you get right down to it. as do claw hammers and framing hammers.
when there is a will, there is usually a way. all it takes is a little imagination.
john jay
The only deadly weapon is stored between the ears. Everything else is just a tool/accessory.
p.s. given my “druthers,” i’d just a soon be shot as beaten to death by a river rock. all things considered. or, strangled or otherwise asphyxiated.
i don’t even want to get into poisons, and the like. most unpleasant.
“…banning or seriously restricting access to weapons that have no purpose other than…”
This phraseology, as always, shows a serious lack of imagination.
I don’t really care what a tool is designed to do. I care what it is actually used for.
If I’m strangled to death with a shoelace, or smothered with a pillow, does it matter to me, or to my next of kin, what these everyday objects’ intended purpose was?
Contrariwise, if I need to break a car window to get out and save my life, and I do so by smashing the glass with the butt of a handgun, are my actions somehow illegitimate because I used a “weapon” that has “no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people in a short time”?
Finally: how is it that this phraseology does not apply to police forces? If a weapon has “no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people in a short time”, then this is true for the police that carry it, every bit as much as for the ordinary citizens that do so. Should we therefore start by disarming the police, who carry weapons that have “no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people in a short time”?
What we really want to do, of course, is to disarm the violent criminals. Problem is, they don’t tend to self-identify… except when they’re actually committing their violent crimes. That’s precisely when having a high percentage of armed citizens can make all the difference.
Yes, that’s what we want. What they want is something quite different: they want to render impotent not those who commit crimes, but those who disagree with them.
That is the most serious crime of all to a Leftist. Such people must be destroyed. Not persuaded, not silenced. Destroyed.
Pretty much.
There’s a cartoon making the rounds with four panels.
1st panel: thuggish looking individual says “I beat a kid to death.” Second person says “What is WRONG with you?”
2nd panel: “I ran over the old lady with a car.” Second person says “What is WRONG with you?”
3rd panel: “I stabbed a guy.” “What is WRONG with you?”
4th panel: “I shot a woman and–” “ERR MAH GERRRRD, WE HAVE TO BAN GUNS!”
If you are intending to ban such weapons from government use only I’m on board. However we know that is not the case you are just another totalitarian butthole.