IslandTractor
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2005
- Messages
- 15,802
- Location
- Prudence Island, RI
- Tractor
- 2007 Kioti DK40se HST, Woods BH
Right there pretty much sums it up.
You see it as a need for government protecting you from others and most TBN members see it as government granting them the right to defend themselves from others.
So, to take this argument to an extreme, why shouldn't i be allowed to protect myself from a mad gun nut with a Bushmaster by using a M60 to protect myself?
My point is really that your right to carry arms needs to be balanced with my right to live without concern that the local village idiot can easily acquire an AR15 type weapon and proceed to take out a first grade class because he is pissed at his mother. I have no trouble with single shot weapons which was all the framers of the Constitution could ever have been thinking about. After that simple right however I think other issues can be considered. We have the right to free speech but not the right to scream "Fire!" when that puts others in danger. Guns can be allowed without permitting every single type of gun. We don't allow true machine guns to be owned by individuals and that has held up to SC review for 80 some years. Why, after learning that similar rapid fire weapons are causing civilian deaths should we not institute similar restrictions on such weapons?
I am aware the previous assault ban didn't work well. So ratchet it up rather than whining. Turn them all in Australia style. I don't see any tyrannical government popping up in Oz but we do know that they have had not even one more mass killing there since assault type weapons were totally banned. And they have about thirty firearm homicides a year compared to our ten thousand. Is that connection really so hard to understand? Buy the rapid fire weapons back and establish major penalties for non compliance. Insure rapid Federal death penalty for any crime committed with such a weapon. If you cannot decide where to draw the line between military type assault weapon and sporting rifle then draw a line at weapons available to the public before 1939 or 1914. It really isn't impossible to do this in a logical and consistent manner. So what if there is a somewhat arbitrary line drawn? We make relatively arbitrary laws all the time (think speed limits). So long as the laws are enforced fairly people will learn to live with them.