Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
"So what body count is the right number? "
I don't know, and that's exactly why we need the conversation.
THERE . . . IS . . . NO . . . CORRECT . . . MAGIC . . . NUMBER!!!!! All numbers eventually lead to ONE! You cannot have a sensible conversation about the humane number of deaths as the correct number. This is not a discussion about old-fashioned military operations where you throw superior numbers of troops at the enemy to overpower them with the expectant number of acceptable losses on your side. The victims of mass murders which are the subject of this conversation are not draftees or volunteers who expect to fight and possibly die. They are not even armed. Every death . . . every single death is A SINGLE sorrow to be mourned. If you begin to discuss how many must be killed before "we do something" the number will EVENTUALLY be whittled down to ONE. If you wish to ban certain guns because they are used to kill innocent people, ONE is the proper number. And since all guns can be used to quickly kill a single person, ALL guns would must then be banned. That is the logical conclusion if the discussion is about numbers.
Detbuch, we can save lives by banning cars.
No, you can't save lives by banning anything we produce. The only thing that can save lives is banning death. Every minute you exist may be your last. And, unless you commit suicide, you don't know when, or how, you will die. Just about anything, including the food you eat, can kill you. What we try to do, I think, in a civil society, is to freely cooperate with one another so that we may individually pursue what we consider our happiness, and part of that cooperation is to refrain from willfully killing each other. We institute laws that punish crimes against each other. One murder is as punishable as 100 and no less an offense to civil society. It is the rogue, not the weapon, who offends. When you give greater weight to 100 deaths than to one, you diminish the loss of that death, and therefor you diminish the loss of all.
I would not support that law, because cars provide an incalculable amount of freedom to 95% of Americans. I just don't see that high capacity magazines are as essential to our way of life.
Our way of life as instituted by the Founders placed weapons capable of resisting a tyrannical government at the top echelon of what is essential to that way. The Second Ammendment and what it guarantees is the final resort to securing that freedom.
If banning them saves one little kid, personally I'd be OK with banning them. I don't think that banning high capacity magazines amounts to a trampling of the constitutional right to bear arms. You could still buy the weapon, just with lower capacity magazines. That doesn't seem all that totalitarian to me.
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You're still not understanding a key point in this discussion. I know you think that citizens defending themselves against the U.S. military is a silly idea. Maybe so. 250 million well-armed citizens would be formidable if they had the courage and purpose to fight. And included in that number would, I think, be included a good portion of that military. Would you, as a soldier, if the government proclaimed martial law with the aim of collecting all weapons from the citizens and imposing an open, despotic, anti-constitutional government, the Constitution you swore to protect and defend--would you serve that government or rebel against it. But that is not the immediate point of this discussion.
The point is that the Federal Government should not be banning the guns from the hands of the citizens. Whatever, if any, banning is done should be at the State level where the citizens have more direct say whether they CHOOSE to ban high capacity magazines, etc.