Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
Look, I'm no anti-gun nut. It just seems like common sense to me that it's easier for me to kill more people with a 30-round magazine than with 3 ten-round magazines.
So what is the acceptable number of people that are allowed to be killed before it is necessary to "control" guns? Is it ten? If one ten round clip should be the max as many state, and assuming that every shot is a kill, would ten be the acceptable number? That might even be reduced to nine since the killer would likely save the last bullet for himself, and his death would not matter. I just find it peculiar to envision a round table of policy makers discussing the right number. Sort of like a ghoulish "kill control," or "number control," then passing the right "gun control" which would limit capacity to the decided number, and the citizens then being pleased that they finally "did something about it."
Traditionally, "gun control" has not been about such numbers. The VAST MAJORITY of death by gun crime in our country has been done by other than "assault type" guns. That larger number, mostly by handguns, has been the constant impetus to "control" guns. The occasional mass murders have just become the "crises" that must not be allowed to go to waste in order to push the issue. Way back in 1994 when "certain military-style-semi-automatic weapons" were banned, a Washington Post editorial said this:
"No one should have any illusions about what was accomplished (by the ban). Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. the provision is MAINLY SYMBOLIC; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, AS HOPED, A STEPPING STONE to broader gun control."
The ultimate goal has always been very broad "gun control," not just so-called assault or semi-automatic, or large clip weapons.
If we are serious about making changes (and I see no evidence we are), we need to make gun control decisions that are based on fact, not emotion. In my opinion, the gun-control issue is less important than the required discussion about the crap in movies and video games we bombard our kids with.
I agree about larger issues and deeper reasons, but when we go about "controlling" all those issues there is really no end to what will be "controlled."
In a free society, we will have these things happen on occasion, that's the price we pay for our freedom. But if we can reduce the frequency and severity of these attacks without trampling on the constitution, I'm all for it.
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A free society, one worthy of our Constitution, is a virtuous society. The Founders understood that without virtue, neither the Constitution nor freedom would be viable. The only way to reduce the frequency of abominations is to instill, instruct, and raise a people who cherish honor, virtue, and righteous lives.
The abandonment of the Constitution (and its insistance that we govern ourselves--that our inalienable right to liberty is also an undeniable duty to be responsible which requires the ultimate virtue) is a stepping stone to the destruction of that virtue as we forgo our rights and responsibilities by transferring those duties to the government. In having lost control of those rights and responsibilities, we must be controlled by government. The ultimate control is not gun control. It is control of the people.