Back in the 1950/60s some nice family guys helped design nuclear bombs and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missles (ICBMs) to deliver them. You could say those missiles were designed to kill millions of people and devastate cities.
But on a higher level they were designed to save lives by deterring the Soviet Union from launching a first strike, something they most certainly would have done if they thought they could win it with acceptable losses (the Soviets had no problem with millions of people dying, even their own).
It is like that with guns. They are designed to kill (on one level), but most often they are intended to save lives. Guns for self defense are designed – on the highest level of understanding – to save lives.
Dr. Gary Kleck (google him) did research showing that Americans use guns a couple million times a year in self defense. In the vast majority of cases no gun is fired. The criminal sees the gun in the hands of an intended victim and vacates the scene. Very criminals get killed by victims compared to those who are deterred.
Therefore, since guns are used to save lives, both of the victim and the aggressor, you have to admit the highest purpose and design of firearms used for self defense is to save live, not take it.
I’m leaving this comment up for the moment, because one of the things I wanted for this blog was discussion and conversation. But trust me, folks: if I find out that this is just spam because of the tags, comments like this will be erased faster than you can fire off 30 rounds.
If the intent was just spam the comment would have been a lot shorter and less detailed. In general you can tell spam because it may say something, “Great post. Good thinking there. .” Just a little guideline to help you figure it out.
Curious if anything in my comments made any sense to you?
They do, in a rather odd logic kind of way. It reminds me of the opening to the novel CANDIDE, in which Pangloss says that the nose was created so men could wear glasses and that legs were designed so we could have pants. Speaking as a Canadian, I simply dont get America’s complete and utter fascination with guns, especially the really, really big ones that fire hundreds of rounds per minute. You say that it’s for defence, and yet what you’re doing is the equivalent of using a rocket launcher to take out a housefly.
And then, when I see your NRA going (excuse the pun) ballistic when someone suggests that perhaps it might be a good idea to know to whom and where these things are going, it becomes an even more bizarre scenario. To put it another way, if the same kind of unfettered liberty were applied to the other amendments that the NRA wishes for the second, it would be perfectly right and reasonable to yell FIRE in that proverbially crowded theatre.
Having said that, I also realize that guns are now a necessary part of your urban life. Anyone who suggests otherwise is denying simple reality, and that’s just as sad as the Wayne LaPierre wanting to put an armed guard every fifty feet in all directions. But the “debate” — and I use that term loosely — has now become so extreme on both sides that a middle ground, right now, is all but impossible, and no one really seems interested in finding one.
To be searingly honest, this is becoming more and more typical of the usual “American” way of doing things: stretch things to a ludicrous point on both sides that the middle is stressed to the point of tearing apart. If you look at what was going on socially and politically back around, oh, 1855 in your country, I think you can understand my increasingly valid fears that history is en route to repeating itself.
Just my 0.02. YRMV.
You wrote:
“Speaking as a Canadian, I simply dont get America’s complete and utter fascination with guns, especially the really, really big ones that fire hundreds of rounds per minute.”
Speaking as an American I know some Canadians who rather like rifles, big and small. One was telling me about how he had a license which sufficed to buy rifles, although I understood handguns were quite a different thing.
Just as a technical matter, weapons that really can fire “hundreds of rounds per minute” are machine guns and have been strictly regulated in the U.S. since 1934 under the National Firearms Act.
The weapons currently being discussed under Senator Feinstein’s new “Assault Weapons Ban” are purely semi-automatic. You have to pull the trigger to fire each round. Now it may be possible to manipulate the triggers to fire a hundred rounds a minute or so – taking into account having to reload – but no one can do that and actually hit something on purpose, other than perhaps the side of a barn if they are standing right next to it.
I read a study a while back conducted by the Navy Seals. It was their conclusion that a very highly trained Seal, some of the best in the world, cannot fire in semi-automatic mode accurately faster than once a second. My observation is that people pretty familiar with an AR-15, even those with military experience, cannot fire a reasonably accurate repeat shots in under 2-3 seconds. So realistically these firearms can be used by most at a rate no higher than 20-30 rounds per minute.
In high power rifle competition with military style rifles we are allowed 60 seconds to fire 10 rounds at 200 yards in the _rapid_ fire stage. 70 seconds for 10 rounds at 300 yard. Also rapid fire. These competitions are based on what were believed to be realistic goals for trained military shooters firing in semi-automatic mode.
You speak of “really big ones” and I don’t necessarily know what you mean. Rifle cartridges generally available today start at .22 caliber (.223 inch) and go up beyond .458 caliber. There are some really big “elephant” cartridges that are larger, but they are not very common.
The cartridge used in the AR-15 is typically the .223 Remington (5.56 x 45mm is the military name for this cartridge – there are some very slight technical differences I won’t go into). You can see immediately that based on diameter it is one of the smallest made (there is a .17 caliber rimfire).
I reload ammunition. In the rifle section of the manuals it starts with the smallest and least powerful and proceeds page after page to the larger an more powerful ones. The .223 is at the beginning with the least powerful rifle cartridges you can load.
Up to the Vietnam War the U.S. (and Canada) used a 7.62mm or .30 caliber service rifle cartrige (in fact I own a large box of Canadian surplus ammo for my M1A). In WWII this was the 30.06 and later the .308 (military version 7.62 x 51mm). Both of these .30 caliber cartriges – based on the kinetic energy of the bullet at the muzzle – are more than twice as powerful than the .223 used in the AR-15 (less than 1300 ft-lbs vs. 2800 ft-lbs or so).
So I really don’t get the “really big ones” comment.
Modern armies went to “assault rifle” type cartridges to replace what were called “battle rifle” cartridges (like used in WWII and Korea) because they were much smaller and lighter. Therefore the soldier could carry a lot more ammo into the field. If you get a chance to carry a large number of both you will immediately appreiate the difference.
In Vietnam we replaced the M14 (.30) with the M16 (.223) because it could fire in full-auto and for that you need a lot more ammo. The military later modified the M16 to fire only 3 shot bursts to conserve ammo.
Just some history. If you go to this post on my blog:
Skip down a bit to the pictures of the relative sizes of different cartridges. I have on the right a 7mm Remington Magnum used in my hunting rifle. It dwarfs the 5.56 (.223). It is obvious in the picture.
You wrote:
“You say that it’s for defence, and yet what you’re doing is the equivalent of using a rocket launcher to take out a housefly.”
Again, go to my post above, “Who Needs An Assault Rifle.” The AR-15 in .223 is a nearly perfect weapon for home defense. The .223 is more powerful than just about any handgun cartridge, but less powerful than just about any other centerfire rifle cartridge.
I think maybe you have watched too many movies and do not have a realistic appreciation of what these weapons are about. 🙂
Here is another article I wrote you might find interesting.
Dude, with all due respect, how a Canadian views a firearm and how an American views it are two very different things. Yes, we do enjoy them for hunting and, shockingly, hone defence, but we dont take it to the rabid extremes as demonstrated by your NRA’s leadership. Owning a firearm in Canada is viewed as a privilege, not an intrinsic right, and you have to demonstrate that you’re prepared not only to exercise that right but that you are fully cognizant of the attendant responsibilities.
You may not know this, but I was born in the US, in Texas, where guns are indeed a part of life from a very early age. I joined the NRA as a young boy, back when its primary focus was on sport shooting and hunting safety. The NRA I knew was actually in favour of gun control legislation and worked with then-President Reagan to make some of it happen. Those days, from what I can see of it, are long gone. Now, the leadership of the organization has been taken over by people whose absolutist view is doing no one on either side of this discussion any good. Again, as a Canadian, I am shocked and appalled that the reasonable and sane gunowners in the US are not standing up to Mr. LaPierre, who seems unable to comprehend the fullness of what he’s espousing.
But yes, America does have a fascination for big, powerful, over-the-top weaponry. You love it in your movies, in your TV shows, n your video games, even in some of your music videos, not to mention your military, which seems to put more emphasis on that than safeguarding the folks who willingly volunteer to serve. You may not want to own one, for whatever reason, but you have the same fascination for them as you do high powered race cars that are completely illogical on the highway and gigantic burgers that are free if you can eat it all in one sitting. It is just another way you seek to vicariously “outsize” life, for no other purpose than to demonstrate that you *can*. It is that adrenaline rush of *power* that I — and many of my Canadian friends — find so bewildering in our American cousins.
Let me underscore: I do not think it’s a wise idea to even consider impounding firearms at this point. In some places, they are a necessity for survival. But there’s a much larger issue: your country is too far down the road to make that even remotely feasible, let alone conceptually possible. There are so many holes in the ownership net that it would be categorically impossible. But what you folks really *do* need to figure out is how the sane folks, both gunowners and non-, can start steering this discussion into some kind of rationality. You have let the extremists on both sides commandeer the discussion. Now someone needs to step in and bring this back to the centre. Frankly, I dont know that it’s possible right now. I suspect not. It’s become too much of a political football, kicked and passed back and forth with no one scoring sufficient points to win the game — and that’s just making the extremists on both sides all the more frustrated and angry at things they *think* are going to happen.
Thank you for your comments. They’ve been enlightening. I hope mine have as well.
“… how a Canadian views a firearm and how an American views it are two very different things.”
It is not an absolute thing. Sometimes you think “X” people think one way, and it is really that all the people you talk to think that way, or the ones the media interview think that way, and the ones who don’t are not the ones you talk to or you don’t see on TV.
Just saying I have met Canadians that have views more like mine, and of course many that are not. Met some Americans that sound more like Canadians or Brits too. I have spent a fair amount of time in Canada in past years. I have totally enjoyed my time in Canada.
And:
“I was born in the US, in Texas.”
I live in Texas currently, a suburb just outside Austin.
And:
“America does have a fascination for big, powerful, over-the-top weaponry.”
Hollywood definitely does. They create lots of what I would call “violence porn.” It is pretty despicable when actors jump into an ad calling for gun control when they made fortunes starring in violence porn.
And:
“Now, the leadership of the organization [NRA] has been taken over by people whose absolutist view is doing no one on either side of this discussion any good.”
President Reagan supported some gun control. The world was quite a bit different then. I was there and voted for him. I think after all that has happened, for example the 1994 ban, the NRA and members have come to realize that they have to draw a line in the sand, and that compromise won’t work.
No matter what compromise we make they will come back and want more.
Registration doesn’t really work to stop crime. Sometimes, and really not that often, it may help solve a crime. It is however trivial to remove the serial number from a firearm. And the BATFE hardly ever tries to track a gun over a couple years old.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea of licensing in an ideal world. The problem is we don’t have an ideal world. In the U.K. and Australia they used registration lists to confiscate a lot of firearms.
So consider this scenario for compromise. People agree to put really strong language into our Constitution. For example, the right to own a semi-automatic rifle with 30 round magazines is absolutely guaranteed to anyone not a convicted criminal or found mentally ill. Make that an Amendment to shore up the 2nd. Then make it an affirmative defense for homicide that a state or Federal official was attempting to illegaly disarm a citizen.
If people will compromise and allow that the right to own semi-auto weapons is an unchallenged right then maybe we would have some grounds for compromise.
And finally you wrote:
“Owning a firearm in Canada is viewed as a privilege, not an intrinsic right, and you have to demonstrate that you’re prepared not only to exercise that right but that you are fully cognizant of the attendant responsibilities.”
Like I said above, I am open to concepts of licensing if the other side is fully willing to compromise and guarantee my right to own an AR-15 if I am not disbarred by criminality or mental illness. The problem is these people have been threatening to take my right away for the over 60 years I have been alive.
Imagine if every couple years, for all of your life, some group of people attempted to demonize you as a sub-human retard and take away your right to free speech, over and over again. How would you feel? Would you feel in a mood to compromise to let them ban just some of your speech?
>> “Imagine if every couple years, for all of your life, some group of people attempted to demonize you as a sub-human retard ”
As a gay man, especially during my years in Texas, yes, I know exactly how that feels. Every day, not every couple of years. And I would posit that the group you speak of is simply the most vocal, not representative of the much larger majority. But because they scream the loudest, just as I have to deal with the mindless assertions of “evangelicals” who think they know more about my relationship with God than I do, society considers them some kind of “norm”. And so I repeat: where are the voices of sanity to counter those who jerk their knees in what is nothing but self-protection?
If you feel you *must* have a semi-automatic, for whatever reason, I have no issue with it… as long as you can demonstrate that you understand the *responsibilities* that come with owning something like that. And that seems to be where it sometimes breaks down. In all the discussion about rights, I have yet to hear the word “responsibilities”. Perhaps that’s the word that needs to be spoken more often? By, I might add, everyone? Even though it may be perfectly legal, who in their right mind would turn the keys to a Ferrari over to someone who just got their learner’s permit? And yet the American approach to this is that anyone with a licence should have the unfettered right to as much armament power as possible. Does that really make any kind of sense? Would you give the ten year old version of you a semi-automatic?
Here’s the thing: I think we can both agree that a shoulder-born surface-to-air missile launcher just might be somewhere outside the bounds of the second amendment — and yet the LAPD received two as part of their voluntary turn-in campaign last month. Do we just continue to ramp it up and up, as though this were some kind Cold War armament game? Where do we draw the line that says, Wait a minute: even taking into consideration that the world is a different place since 1777, this is going well beyond what the Founding Father intended. I dont think they would have liked the idea of a personal Sherman tank — and yet I’m sure there are some people who would strongly argue that it’s simply a gun on wheels, and therefore they should have the unquestioned right to it. You say that you want your right to this guaranteed in the constitution, and I would respond by saying it is only a matter of time before someone decides that even that is not strong enough, that we need *more*… and then it all starts all over again.
Just as an Indy race car or a Sherman tank have no place on the freeways, there has to be a point somewhere that says, “Enough.” As a responsible gunowner, you should know what that limit is.
DOC AND RAIDER 
Back in the 1950/60s some nice family guys helped design nuclear bombs and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missles (ICBMs) to deliver them. You could say those missiles were designed to kill millions of people and devastate cities.
But on a higher level they were designed to save lives by deterring the Soviet Union from launching a first strike, something they most certainly would have done if they thought they could win it with acceptable losses (the Soviets had no problem with millions of people dying, even their own).
It is like that with guns. They are designed to kill (on one level), but most often they are intended to save lives. Guns for self defense are designed – on the highest level of understanding – to save lives.
Dr. Gary Kleck (google him) did research showing that Americans use guns a couple million times a year in self defense. In the vast majority of cases no gun is fired. The criminal sees the gun in the hands of an intended victim and vacates the scene. Very criminals get killed by victims compared to those who are deterred.
Therefore, since guns are used to save lives, both of the victim and the aggressor, you have to admit the highest purpose and design of firearms used for self defense is to save live, not take it.
lwk
Who Needs An Assault Rifle?
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/who-needs-an-assault-rifle/
I’m leaving this comment up for the moment, because one of the things I wanted for this blog was discussion and conversation. But trust me, folks: if I find out that this is just spam because of the tags, comments like this will be erased faster than you can fire off 30 rounds.
If the intent was just spam the comment would have been a lot shorter and less detailed. In general you can tell spam because it may say something, “Great post. Good thinking there. .” Just a little guideline to help you figure it out.
Curious if anything in my comments made any sense to you?
They do, in a rather odd logic kind of way. It reminds me of the opening to the novel CANDIDE, in which Pangloss says that the nose was created so men could wear glasses and that legs were designed so we could have pants. Speaking as a Canadian, I simply dont get America’s complete and utter fascination with guns, especially the really, really big ones that fire hundreds of rounds per minute. You say that it’s for defence, and yet what you’re doing is the equivalent of using a rocket launcher to take out a housefly.
And then, when I see your NRA going (excuse the pun) ballistic when someone suggests that perhaps it might be a good idea to know to whom and where these things are going, it becomes an even more bizarre scenario. To put it another way, if the same kind of unfettered liberty were applied to the other amendments that the NRA wishes for the second, it would be perfectly right and reasonable to yell FIRE in that proverbially crowded theatre.
Having said that, I also realize that guns are now a necessary part of your urban life. Anyone who suggests otherwise is denying simple reality, and that’s just as sad as the Wayne LaPierre wanting to put an armed guard every fifty feet in all directions. But the “debate” — and I use that term loosely — has now become so extreme on both sides that a middle ground, right now, is all but impossible, and no one really seems interested in finding one.
To be searingly honest, this is becoming more and more typical of the usual “American” way of doing things: stretch things to a ludicrous point on both sides that the middle is stressed to the point of tearing apart. If you look at what was going on socially and politically back around, oh, 1855 in your country, I think you can understand my increasingly valid fears that history is en route to repeating itself.
Just my 0.02. YRMV.
You wrote:
“Speaking as a Canadian, I simply dont get America’s complete and utter fascination with guns, especially the really, really big ones that fire hundreds of rounds per minute.”
Speaking as an American I know some Canadians who rather like rifles, big and small. One was telling me about how he had a license which sufficed to buy rifles, although I understood handguns were quite a different thing.
Just as a technical matter, weapons that really can fire “hundreds of rounds per minute” are machine guns and have been strictly regulated in the U.S. since 1934 under the National Firearms Act.
The weapons currently being discussed under Senator Feinstein’s new “Assault Weapons Ban” are purely semi-automatic. You have to pull the trigger to fire each round. Now it may be possible to manipulate the triggers to fire a hundred rounds a minute or so – taking into account having to reload – but no one can do that and actually hit something on purpose, other than perhaps the side of a barn if they are standing right next to it.
I read a study a while back conducted by the Navy Seals. It was their conclusion that a very highly trained Seal, some of the best in the world, cannot fire in semi-automatic mode accurately faster than once a second. My observation is that people pretty familiar with an AR-15, even those with military experience, cannot fire a reasonably accurate repeat shots in under 2-3 seconds. So realistically these firearms can be used by most at a rate no higher than 20-30 rounds per minute.
In high power rifle competition with military style rifles we are allowed 60 seconds to fire 10 rounds at 200 yards in the _rapid_ fire stage. 70 seconds for 10 rounds at 300 yard. Also rapid fire. These competitions are based on what were believed to be realistic goals for trained military shooters firing in semi-automatic mode.
You speak of “really big ones” and I don’t necessarily know what you mean. Rifle cartridges generally available today start at .22 caliber (.223 inch) and go up beyond .458 caliber. There are some really big “elephant” cartridges that are larger, but they are not very common.
The cartridge used in the AR-15 is typically the .223 Remington (5.56 x 45mm is the military name for this cartridge – there are some very slight technical differences I won’t go into). You can see immediately that based on diameter it is one of the smallest made (there is a .17 caliber rimfire).
I reload ammunition. In the rifle section of the manuals it starts with the smallest and least powerful and proceeds page after page to the larger an more powerful ones. The .223 is at the beginning with the least powerful rifle cartridges you can load.
Up to the Vietnam War the U.S. (and Canada) used a 7.62mm or .30 caliber service rifle cartrige (in fact I own a large box of Canadian surplus ammo for my M1A). In WWII this was the 30.06 and later the .308 (military version 7.62 x 51mm). Both of these .30 caliber cartriges – based on the kinetic energy of the bullet at the muzzle – are more than twice as powerful than the .223 used in the AR-15 (less than 1300 ft-lbs vs. 2800 ft-lbs or so).
So I really don’t get the “really big ones” comment.
Modern armies went to “assault rifle” type cartridges to replace what were called “battle rifle” cartridges (like used in WWII and Korea) because they were much smaller and lighter. Therefore the soldier could carry a lot more ammo into the field. If you get a chance to carry a large number of both you will immediately appreiate the difference.
In Vietnam we replaced the M14 (.30) with the M16 (.223) because it could fire in full-auto and for that you need a lot more ammo. The military later modified the M16 to fire only 3 shot bursts to conserve ammo.
Just some history. If you go to this post on my blog:
Who Needs An Assault Rifle?
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/who-needs-an-assault-rifle/
Skip down a bit to the pictures of the relative sizes of different cartridges. I have on the right a 7mm Remington Magnum used in my hunting rifle. It dwarfs the 5.56 (.223). It is obvious in the picture.
You wrote:
“You say that it’s for defence, and yet what you’re doing is the equivalent of using a rocket launcher to take out a housefly.”
Again, go to my post above, “Who Needs An Assault Rifle.” The AR-15 in .223 is a nearly perfect weapon for home defense. The .223 is more powerful than just about any handgun cartridge, but less powerful than just about any other centerfire rifle cartridge.
I think maybe you have watched too many movies and do not have a realistic appreciation of what these weapons are about. 🙂
Here is another article I wrote you might find interesting.
Assault Rifles
http://free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com/assault-rifles/
Regards,
lwk
Dude, with all due respect, how a Canadian views a firearm and how an American views it are two very different things. Yes, we do enjoy them for hunting and, shockingly, hone defence, but we dont take it to the rabid extremes as demonstrated by your NRA’s leadership. Owning a firearm in Canada is viewed as a privilege, not an intrinsic right, and you have to demonstrate that you’re prepared not only to exercise that right but that you are fully cognizant of the attendant responsibilities.
You may not know this, but I was born in the US, in Texas, where guns are indeed a part of life from a very early age. I joined the NRA as a young boy, back when its primary focus was on sport shooting and hunting safety. The NRA I knew was actually in favour of gun control legislation and worked with then-President Reagan to make some of it happen. Those days, from what I can see of it, are long gone. Now, the leadership of the organization has been taken over by people whose absolutist view is doing no one on either side of this discussion any good. Again, as a Canadian, I am shocked and appalled that the reasonable and sane gunowners in the US are not standing up to Mr. LaPierre, who seems unable to comprehend the fullness of what he’s espousing.
But yes, America does have a fascination for big, powerful, over-the-top weaponry. You love it in your movies, in your TV shows, n your video games, even in some of your music videos, not to mention your military, which seems to put more emphasis on that than safeguarding the folks who willingly volunteer to serve. You may not want to own one, for whatever reason, but you have the same fascination for them as you do high powered race cars that are completely illogical on the highway and gigantic burgers that are free if you can eat it all in one sitting. It is just another way you seek to vicariously “outsize” life, for no other purpose than to demonstrate that you *can*. It is that adrenaline rush of *power* that I — and many of my Canadian friends — find so bewildering in our American cousins.
Let me underscore: I do not think it’s a wise idea to even consider impounding firearms at this point. In some places, they are a necessity for survival. But there’s a much larger issue: your country is too far down the road to make that even remotely feasible, let alone conceptually possible. There are so many holes in the ownership net that it would be categorically impossible. But what you folks really *do* need to figure out is how the sane folks, both gunowners and non-, can start steering this discussion into some kind of rationality. You have let the extremists on both sides commandeer the discussion. Now someone needs to step in and bring this back to the centre. Frankly, I dont know that it’s possible right now. I suspect not. It’s become too much of a political football, kicked and passed back and forth with no one scoring sufficient points to win the game — and that’s just making the extremists on both sides all the more frustrated and angry at things they *think* are going to happen.
Thank you for your comments. They’ve been enlightening. I hope mine have as well.
You wrote:
“… how a Canadian views a firearm and how an American views it are two very different things.”
It is not an absolute thing. Sometimes you think “X” people think one way, and it is really that all the people you talk to think that way, or the ones the media interview think that way, and the ones who don’t are not the ones you talk to or you don’t see on TV.
Just saying I have met Canadians that have views more like mine, and of course many that are not. Met some Americans that sound more like Canadians or Brits too. I have spent a fair amount of time in Canada in past years. I have totally enjoyed my time in Canada.
And:
“I was born in the US, in Texas.”
I live in Texas currently, a suburb just outside Austin.
And:
“America does have a fascination for big, powerful, over-the-top weaponry.”
Hollywood definitely does. They create lots of what I would call “violence porn.” It is pretty despicable when actors jump into an ad calling for gun control when they made fortunes starring in violence porn.
And:
“Now, the leadership of the organization [NRA] has been taken over by people whose absolutist view is doing no one on either side of this discussion any good.”
President Reagan supported some gun control. The world was quite a bit different then. I was there and voted for him. I think after all that has happened, for example the 1994 ban, the NRA and members have come to realize that they have to draw a line in the sand, and that compromise won’t work.
No matter what compromise we make they will come back and want more.
Registration doesn’t really work to stop crime. Sometimes, and really not that often, it may help solve a crime. It is however trivial to remove the serial number from a firearm. And the BATFE hardly ever tries to track a gun over a couple years old.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea of licensing in an ideal world. The problem is we don’t have an ideal world. In the U.K. and Australia they used registration lists to confiscate a lot of firearms.
So consider this scenario for compromise. People agree to put really strong language into our Constitution. For example, the right to own a semi-automatic rifle with 30 round magazines is absolutely guaranteed to anyone not a convicted criminal or found mentally ill. Make that an Amendment to shore up the 2nd. Then make it an affirmative defense for homicide that a state or Federal official was attempting to illegaly disarm a citizen.
If people will compromise and allow that the right to own semi-auto weapons is an unchallenged right then maybe we would have some grounds for compromise.
And finally you wrote:
“Owning a firearm in Canada is viewed as a privilege, not an intrinsic right, and you have to demonstrate that you’re prepared not only to exercise that right but that you are fully cognizant of the attendant responsibilities.”
Like I said above, I am open to concepts of licensing if the other side is fully willing to compromise and guarantee my right to own an AR-15 if I am not disbarred by criminality or mental illness. The problem is these people have been threatening to take my right away for the over 60 years I have been alive.
Imagine if every couple years, for all of your life, some group of people attempted to demonize you as a sub-human retard and take away your right to free speech, over and over again. How would you feel? Would you feel in a mood to compromise to let them ban just some of your speech?
That’s it in a nutshell. 🙂
lwk
>> “Imagine if every couple years, for all of your life, some group of people attempted to demonize you as a sub-human retard ”
As a gay man, especially during my years in Texas, yes, I know exactly how that feels. Every day, not every couple of years. And I would posit that the group you speak of is simply the most vocal, not representative of the much larger majority. But because they scream the loudest, just as I have to deal with the mindless assertions of “evangelicals” who think they know more about my relationship with God than I do, society considers them some kind of “norm”. And so I repeat: where are the voices of sanity to counter those who jerk their knees in what is nothing but self-protection?
If you feel you *must* have a semi-automatic, for whatever reason, I have no issue with it… as long as you can demonstrate that you understand the *responsibilities* that come with owning something like that. And that seems to be where it sometimes breaks down. In all the discussion about rights, I have yet to hear the word “responsibilities”. Perhaps that’s the word that needs to be spoken more often? By, I might add, everyone? Even though it may be perfectly legal, who in their right mind would turn the keys to a Ferrari over to someone who just got their learner’s permit? And yet the American approach to this is that anyone with a licence should have the unfettered right to as much armament power as possible. Does that really make any kind of sense? Would you give the ten year old version of you a semi-automatic?
Here’s the thing: I think we can both agree that a shoulder-born surface-to-air missile launcher just might be somewhere outside the bounds of the second amendment — and yet the LAPD received two as part of their voluntary turn-in campaign last month. Do we just continue to ramp it up and up, as though this were some kind Cold War armament game? Where do we draw the line that says, Wait a minute: even taking into consideration that the world is a different place since 1777, this is going well beyond what the Founding Father intended. I dont think they would have liked the idea of a personal Sherman tank — and yet I’m sure there are some people who would strongly argue that it’s simply a gun on wheels, and therefore they should have the unquestioned right to it. You say that you want your right to this guaranteed in the constitution, and I would respond by saying it is only a matter of time before someone decides that even that is not strong enough, that we need *more*… and then it all starts all over again.
Just as an Indy race car or a Sherman tank have no place on the freeways, there has to be a point somewhere that says, “Enough.” As a responsible gunowner, you should know what that limit is.