More Gun Control is Bullshit

More Gun Control is Bullshit

I know, everyone is very emotional about the recent school shooting in Connecticut.  Click the link if you happen to have spent the last several weeks in a cave somewhere and don't know what I'm talking about.  This tragedy has energized the left to attempt a return to a failed policy of the Clinton administration, the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994.  I'm obviously against it.  Don't worry, I'm not going to go all "Fox News" on you, but as a Libertarian, I feel the need to speak out on why I think this particular debate is way, way off base.

My going-in position, when unsure which way to go, is almost always to side with more freedom, not less.  That is true on all the divisive issues in America today: abortion, marijuana, guns, gay marriage, etc.  I find no comfort in federal government control of almost anything.  They never fail to make the situation worse than it was.  Case in point--Prohibition.  So, I think the burden of proof lies with the side that wishes to restrict something, not with the side that tends toward liberty.

Assault Weapons?

So now some people in the government are saying that we peasants are not allowed to own assault weapons.  Those are to be reserved only for the government's own use.  As you know, I'm usually pretty upset whenever the government tells me I can't have anything, especially something that the constitution says I have as an inherent right.

"...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Ring any bells?

But what, exactly are they trying to outlaw?  Assault weapons?  What the hell is an "assault weapon?"

What is an Assault Weapon, Anyway?  The link will take you to an article describing what congress defined it as in 1994 under the Clinton administration.  Most of the definition has to do with what the gun looks like, not how it works.  Just so you know, defining a weapon this way is idiotic.

I'm not uneducated when it comes to guns.  But I don't know what an "assault weapon" is.  I know what an assault rifle is.  It is a rifle, firing an intermediate cartridge (bigger than a pistol bullet, smaller than a full-sized rifle bullet), that offers select-fire.  Select-fire means that you can switch it from either semi-automatic (one bullet at a time) or fully automatic (more than one bullet with each pull of the trigger).  It was meant as a hybrid between the submachine gun and the battle rifle.

Submachine Gun (Automatic, small bullet)

Battle Rifle (Semi-automatic, large bullet)



 

Assault Rifle (Select-fire, medium-sized bullet)

Battle-rifle cartridge, Intermediate cartridge, Pistol cartridge.
See what I mean?

It is the option of switching the weapon to automatic fire, and a bullet small enough to control in automatic fire that makes it an "assault rifle."  The pistol grip and carrying handle are not really the things that make the weapon what it is.

Select-fire and fully-automatic weapons have been under tight control for decades.  If you want to own a true assault rifle, you already have to abide by some very, very tight regulations.  These rules were established in 1934, under the National Firearms Act.  The purpose of this legislation was to regulate what were then called "gangster guns," such as the infamous Tommygun and the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).  Most of these restrictions remain to this day.  We can debate the constitutionality of the 1934 NFA another time, but the point I'm making is that true assault rifles are already tightly restricted.  The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban restricts weapons that look like assault rifles.  The actual abilities of the weapons described in the ban are not much different to any other firearm, making the ban seem both ridiculous and ignorant.

Too little, too late

The next point I want to make is that the sheer number of weapons already available in the United States makes a ban impossible to enforce.  According to the internet, the number of privately-owned firearms in the USA is between 300 million and a bazillion.  And I can't imagine the internet would lie to me.  That makes government control, or even government knowledge, of all America's guns pretty much the same as pissing in the Pacific Ocean. It will make you feel better, but it won't make any difference at all.

It may make you feel better,
but it isn't going to make any difference at all.

Right Wing News: The Assault Weapons Ban Didn’t Work Then and It Won’t Work Now

My next point is the most upsetting.  It is the one you don't like to hear.  Are you ready?  Here it is:


First-graders are really easy to kill. 

Nobody likes to think about it, but small children just cannot defend themselves against a determined adult, even if they take Taekwondo classes.  Almost any able-bodied man can wreak havoc in an elementary school classroom with nothing more than garden tools.  A nut with a machete could do an awful lot of damage.

Imagine how much damage this mouth-breather could do.

I don't even want to think about mixing samurai swords, weirdos, and ADHD drugs.

Maybe we should think about that a while, and consider controlling who gets their hands on those too.  It's actually already been done: Ban on Assault Machetes

Massacres of defenseless children are shocking and terrible, but they are hardly a new phenomenon.  They certainly pre-date the invention of firearms.  If you attended Sunday-school in your youth, you may have heard the story of King Herod, for example.  The key ingredient in mass killings is craziness, not firearms.  Maybe we should look at applying our money and attention towards recognizing and treating mental illnesses before they make the evening news.  But that's just my opinion.

Maybe more guns do mean more gun-related deaths; but do fewer guns mean that there are fewer homicides in total?

Here are some articles by people who certainly think so:

Washington Post Blog: Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/gun-control_b_2431686.html


Here's another guy who thinks otherwise:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-media-isnt-being-honest-about-this-oddly-enough-the-data-in-this-viral-vid-has-been-left-out-of-the-gun-control-debate/

Here's the rub: 

Private ownership of weapons is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  It certainly doesn't mention in that amendment that the weapons owned by the people should be inferior or antiquated.  Therefore, any attempt to restrict this right to inferior or antiquated technologies is not in keeping with the constitution.

That is not to say that this cannot be changed, however.  If the people really do want to restrict gun ownership (as the left avows), then there exists a mechanism to do so.  Amend the constitution, overturn the 2nd Amendment, and get it ratified.  Click here to see how.  Otherwise, shut up about gun control.