While the issue of gun control has been a hot topic among Liberals and Conservatives for the longest time, the real dispute here seems to be over whether assault weapons and other "weapons of mass death" should be allowed in the home. There is overwhelming evidence that keeping a handgun or rifle in a household is conducive to peace of mind, so while that's still a very interesting topic, both Civis and I agree on the matter, making it not a very interesting debate at all.
Personally, I agree with Civis to some extent on the matter of assault weapons. Assault weapons, which are firearms that have been developed from earlier fully-automatics into semi-automatic civilian versions, are slightly over-the-top: you don't buy ten gallons of paint if you only want to paint one chair. Regardless, the issue becomes one of personal liberty.
In 2001, criminologists Koper and Roth published a paper titled "The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapon Ban on Gun Violence Outcomes: An Assessment of Multiple Outcome Measures and Some Lessons for Policy Evaluation," in which they found that "any likely effects from the ban will be very difficult to detect statistically for several more years." Also, they "found no evidence of reductions in multiple-victim gun homicides or multiple-gunshot wound victimizations." If this study is true in stating that a ban on assault rifles doesn't significantly change homicide rates, there is no reason why people shouldn't be allowed them in their homes.
While, as stated before, assault rifles are superfluous to most civilians, they should not be banned so long as they provide no serious threat to one's security, which, as of yet, they do not. Assault weapons do not have a particular bloody history in civilian use, and there is no reason they should. As long as treated with respect, as any gun deserves, there is no reason why they should not be allowed into the hands of collectors and avid marksmen.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Gun Rights? - Civis
It's been nearly a month since we last posted here at the American Discourse blog, we apologize. Fortunately, we're back; this time with the topic of gun rights.
One thing I'm not going to do here is to be the over-the-top liberal who says we should take away all the guns and dispose of them. In reality, that's as ridiculous as trying to outlaw abortions. However, just as 3rd trimester abortions should be decreased, so should the proliferation of large assault weapons.
Perhaps this is an appropriate point to discuss the 2nd Amendment. The text is as follows: "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." So clearly, this means that a large segment of society should have large lethal automatic guns I don't understand how that conclusion can be made. I firmly believe that this amendment is granting the people to posess medium to small sized handguns, that are of course lethal, but not able to automatically fire dozens and dozens of rounds per minute. This amendment guarantees a "militia," which in my opinion is definitely not the group today known as "The Minutemen" operating at the border.
What I think needs to be done is a total ban on certain assault weapons. I don't mean some pistol a reasonable person keeps in their closet to protect themselves. That's absolutely fine and should be encouraged. Things that can kill more people in the same timeframe as grenades shouldn't be legally available in the U.S. market. There's a reason we don't allow people to purchase grenades. Then why can people buy more violent and powerful weapons? If this ban isn't possible (right now it is not politically, despite Democratic majorities in both houses, interestingly), then at the very least these weapons should be made extremely difficult to obtain.
Everyone has an absolute right to own a reasonably sized gun for protection. But the Constitution has never guaranteed weapons of mass death for any citizen.
One thing I'm not going to do here is to be the over-the-top liberal who says we should take away all the guns and dispose of them. In reality, that's as ridiculous as trying to outlaw abortions. However, just as 3rd trimester abortions should be decreased, so should the proliferation of large assault weapons.
Perhaps this is an appropriate point to discuss the 2nd Amendment. The text is as follows: "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." So clearly, this means that a large segment of society should have large lethal automatic guns I don't understand how that conclusion can be made. I firmly believe that this amendment is granting the people to posess medium to small sized handguns, that are of course lethal, but not able to automatically fire dozens and dozens of rounds per minute. This amendment guarantees a "militia," which in my opinion is definitely not the group today known as "The Minutemen" operating at the border.
What I think needs to be done is a total ban on certain assault weapons. I don't mean some pistol a reasonable person keeps in their closet to protect themselves. That's absolutely fine and should be encouraged. Things that can kill more people in the same timeframe as grenades shouldn't be legally available in the U.S. market. There's a reason we don't allow people to purchase grenades. Then why can people buy more violent and powerful weapons? If this ban isn't possible (right now it is not politically, despite Democratic majorities in both houses, interestingly), then at the very least these weapons should be made extremely difficult to obtain.
Everyone has an absolute right to own a reasonably sized gun for protection. But the Constitution has never guaranteed weapons of mass death for any citizen.
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