COLUMBINE SURVIVOR PENS BOLD OPEN LETTER TO OBAMA REJECTING GUN CONTROL: ‘WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?’

(sorry, can't get rid of caps)

Boondoggle99 wrote:
PL, I am not going to try to convince you of anything, and I am not going to agree that a more armed populace is a safer populous, but I would be interested in hearing why it would be "bad" if firearms were limited to a small (2-6) number of shots before requiring re-loading.

PersonalLegend wrote:

Boondoggle99 wrote:
PL, I am not going to try to convince you of anything, and I am not going to agree that a more armed populace is a safer populous, but I would be interested in hearing why it would be "bad" if firearms were limited to a small (2-6) number of shots before requiring re-loading.

This is a matter of principle, not utilitarian calculus.  I'd be fine with the limitation if we applied it to all state owned or supplied firearms. Problem is, we don't do that.  We say the cops are "outgunned" by criminals, but then entertain the notion that private citizens wouldn't be similarly "outgunned." 

In other words, I find it hypocritical in the extreme for a politician who exists under the security of gentlemen armed with multiple high capacity or even fully automatic firearms saying that such firearms aren't "needed" by private citizens.

Michael Bloomberg only wants to disarm other people.  He is fully armed...by proxy.  I find that slightly repugnant. 

So, if we as a "society" decide that such firearms are repugnant, then let's start by having the state eliminate them from its inventory, including those carried by private contractors employed by the state...then the private citizens; Not the other way around.

Until that happens, I'll go ahead and stick to the notion that the ownership of individual arms equivalent to those owned by the military is a fundamental right.

I don't "need" a 30 round magazine for a rifle any more than Rosa Parks "needed" to sit in the front of the bus; but why should the state be able to determine it in either case?

Constitutionally, the determination of "need" or "bad" shouldn't really come into the conversation; yet we find ourselves discussing such things.  That was the gist of my question as to the point of Roscoe's inquiry.  The possible fact that a "mass murder" may not have been stopped by a person with an "assault weapon" is highly biased by extreme statist limitations on individuals' ability to carry such firearms in general (try open carrying an AR-15 in your local grocery store and see how fast the popo show up); and especially in areas where most "mass murders" happen (in gun free zones). 

But, it's also pointless, because the constitution says nothing about private citizens stopping mass murder--it establishes no a priori condition for use of arms other than the preservation of a free state.

Let me also say this:  I'd have no problem with outlawing 100 round magazines if they were stricken from the feds as well (not a big deal). 30 round magazines are "standard issue" for many firearms.  100 round magazines are excessive.

PersonalLegend wrote: That's not even part of the manifesto. 

Seriously, if you read what I wrote as angry or otherwise unthoughtful, I didn't intend that. 

I'm serious when I speak out against our tendency to deem some animals more equal than others. 

High capacity firearms owned by the state are owned by you and by me. If you own them, you should be saying "we don't want those in the hands of our own agents."  That is a much more consistent, logical argument as a first step than saying you don't want them owned by someone whose ownership interest you have no interest in. 

New Jersey just passed a ban on gun magazines that are >10 rounds.  In that bill, they exempted retired police officers.  Why?  A retired police officer is just like me.  Why don't I get equal protection under the law?   Did that police officer earn a type of citizenship that I have not earned by virtue of his/her work as a police officer? 

Again, not angry, just logical.  Why hasn't a single politician moved to repeal the 2nd amendment?  That's the logical route to the gun free utopia that anti-gun people hypothesize.  I'd be fine with that if it were to be the law of the land. 

Instead, we create classes of people who can and who can't by trying to skirt rights owned by all.  It's outside the intent of our constitution.  Want to ban something?  Fine, ban it from use by all people in the country. Don't ban something because it is inherently dangerous and then allow a substantial fraction of the population to still own it because they are "blessed."

TLV01 wrote: It's a false comparison.  Nobody died when Rosa Parks sat down.  The right to keep and bear arms didn't help Medgar Evers or Martin Luther King. 

I don't know how you can concede that 100 round magazines are excessive.  These rights are supposed to be indivisible.  There are many gun proponents who think that they are not only reasonable, but necessary, and use your own logic against you. 

At my local gun store I bought some ammunition.  The place was hopping. Busiest I've ever seen.  On display was a Barrett BMG 50 cal sniper rifle (M82) and a case of ammunition. Both are unbelievably expensive but people do buy them even though Barrett does not support or sell the original 50 cal. version.  The thing can hit targets accurately over a mile away.  It's now described as an "anti-materiel" weapon (vehicles, buildings etc.) partly because 'sniper" was too controversial a term.  Designed and built with no purpose other than to kill people (and tear things up )from long range.  Certainly useless in most instances where a "good guy with a gun" could allegedly stop something like a Newtown or Colorado shootings.  Other than the indivisible right to keep and bear arms there's no logic to having one in civilian hands.  If it is considered reasonable to have an M82 because civilians have to have equal firepower with the potentially oppressive police and military,  it's hard to see how you keep almost any weapon out of the hands of civilians.  If you do accept "reasonable" limitations,  then you cede the determination of those back to the public or the state.