I understand the concerns people have when they hear stories about “mass casualties”. And my sympathies go out to victims of ANY violence. Murder, rape, assaults, robbery… ANY. But people who are focusing their attention on “banning assault rifles” are promoting the stupidest idea – ever.
Make Up Your Minds Already!
I hate hypocrites. And there are a hell of a lot of people who run out and buy guns every time something bad happens.
The problem is, YOU want to own guns – but you don’t want anyone else to.
Oh, I understand. Having the ability to exercise real power over another person is incredibly enticing. Just ask our politicians. But if everyone owns guns, we just get into an arms race, right? First pistols, then shotguns, then rifles, then hand grenades. WE’VE GOT TO DRAW A LINE!
Wrong.
PEOPLE Are the Problem
If assault rifles didn’t exist, it wouldn’t have stopped any serial killer in history. Guaranteed. Because theres nothing they did with an assault rifle that they couldn’t have done with any number of other weapons.
Just ask Timothy McVea. He did it with fertilizer far more effectively than even the deadliest ever shooting. Or how about the Unibomber. Or Anthrax in the mail. Or…
- The Bath school bombings
- The September 11 attacks with box cutters and airplanes.
- Baseball bat murders in Florida
- Nearly 200 dead in arson subway fire
In fact, the list of Rampage Killings is not limited to the US, and even a quick examination will demonstrate that Assault Rifles have nothing to do with murder sprees, which predate the invention of the gun!
No One Wants Responsibility
One of the worst arguments ever is when people say, “You don’t need assault rifles (*or fill in any weapon type here) because it’s the job of the Police to protect people, not yours!”
WRONG! Even the Police Chiefs routinely discuss the fact that they are under no obligation to protect citizens. They don’t carry guns to protect YOU. They carry guns to protect themselves. And they revel in the fact that 99.9% of the time they are much better armed than the citizenry they police. Because… They too want to own guns, but don’t want anyone else to!
But at the end of the day, only YOU can be responsible for your own personal safety. This isn’t a responsibility that can be outsourced, although a lot of people mistakenly feel warm and fuzzy at the thought that someone out there is looking out for them. Right up to the moment they discover it’s not true.
We The People Have the Power
I’m all good with making arguments and discussing the pros and cons of gun control, or abortion, or freedom of speech, or whatever. But let’s not anyone forget that trying to take away American’s guns is illegal. It is actually against the law, since it’s hard wired directly into the Constitution.
And it’s there for a reason. As has been demonstrated in the past, we have used weapons to liberate ourselves from tyranny. And if we didn’t have the weapons, we definitively would not still be free today.
We’ve also used weapons to protect ourselves. And in fact, every year pistols, rifles, shotguns and God knows what else are used to prevent crime and at times even kill perpetrators. We are supposed to have the power to do this. We do have the power to do this. But unfortunately, we don’t always exercise it.
We’re Responsible For Our Own Protection
Recently there was a mass shooting in a Florida nightclub. Because the killer had an AR-15 rifle among the weapons he used, a tremendous amount of focus has come on the weapon he chose. But I haven’t heard anyone question why out of 200 people in the club – no one was carrying a defensive pistol?!? It’s mind boggling to me.
If just a couple of people in that club had pistols, the entire tragedy could have turned out very differently. Because in a closed, close quarters situation pistols actually offer advantages over large assault rifles. And if even one person had returned fire, the event could have been brought to an end. If two or three people had responded, the gunman would have certainly met his doom.
Bottom Line
There is absolutely no weapon that can be taken away to prevent tragedy. This is a fact, backed by the entirety of human history.
If you begin stripping law abiding citizens of the weapons that enable them to be on an equal footing as opponents, you simply leave them vulnerable. It has no effect on the wrongdoers because by definition they are going to break the law and own and use the weapons.
Likewise, if you take away citizen’s rights to own weapons that would put them on equal footing with their own governmental entities, you leave those in power with absolutely nothing to fear. And it takes just one maniac to wreak unmeasurable tragedy upon the people.
The real answer is for everyone to toughen up a little and stand up and take responsibility for your own safety and protection. Only when everyone is prepared to act can we then also look out for one another. And doing so would solve a lot of other problems as well.
It’s called Teamwork. Ask your local friendly Marine about it.
Sometimes things need to be controlled from the source
There is a book, How To Win The War Against Terrorists
Buy here
https://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Terrorists-How-Win/dp/0441871879?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
In it, the author is an experienced anti-terrorist who shares his years of experience fighting terror. He suggests that….
A. Terrorists are Terrorist first and fanatics for their cause second, they live to commit some act that will spread their fame on the Nightly News.
B. Terrorists kill anyone not as dedicated as they are to hurting and killing others. It dangerous to lead a terrorist cell and not give the cell members the license to do all the cruel things and crimes they want to do. They are a type who enjoys hurting and killing others they perceive will make them infamous.
C. Terrorists enjoy hurting and killing others, only such types are drawn to terrorism.
Good defense of the Second Amendment rights! I would only add that a better “policing” of fanatics, whether they be mentally challenged or religious fanatics, would go a long way to fewer mass attacks. The current threat is the latter and we know exactly where they get their directions. Perhaps we should do something about the teachings of that religion or at least the violent parts of it. That community has been unwilling to police their own mostly because of the teaching of violence in their reference book. That needs to change.
Amen John P!
Wow, there is a whole lot of fail in here.
First and foremost, consider that only about 30% of American households have a gun. It’s not the majority, it’s the minority. Gun sales increases are often people who already have a gun in the house adding more (because, clearly, more guns will fix the problem).
If the will of the majority was followed, the second amendment would have be repealed a long time ago.
The operative word when you say, “about 30 percent of American households have a gun” is “about”. No one really knows since registration is not always required.
Also, you need to drop the word “households” in there. Because that skews your argument dramatically. It’s generally accepted at the moment that 30% of Americans own guns. And if the average household was say, 4, then your’e argument is off by 400%.
Keep in mind that 25% of the population are below 18 and not legally allowed to own guns, and another 9% are over age 70, so more than 1/3 of the population are legally or logically disqualified.
No matter how you look at it, “around” 100 MILLION adult, voting age Americans own at least one gun, out of about 310 Million total. So if you exclude the population that can’t vote (legally or practically) you’ve got about 1/3 of the people who own guns, and 1/3 who don’t. And assuming that the 1/3 who don’t would vote to ban guns altogether is a very, very bad assumption.
The wives, fathers, mothers, and siblings of gun owners are extremely unlikely to vote in unison to ban guns. Many people who don’t own them, still grew up in households that had them and have no philosophical issue with them.
By the way, people who own guns often own more than one not because they are psychos, but because guns are tools and different tools are useful for different things. Handguns can’t be used as rifles. Rifles can’t be used as shotguns. Therefore, they own different tools for different purposes.
I would argue that the idea that guns should be banned, or that people who own them are gun nuts is actually the extremist idea. Because America is a country that literally only exists BECAUSE the people were armed and willing to use their guns to create it.
The idea that we’ve got what we want so we should all get rid of the guns now is preposterous.
This is just so preposterously ridiculous.
I happen to live in a part of this country that has incredibly strict gun laws, incredibly low gun ownership, and incredibly low crime (I think we are in the top 10 safest cities in the US). You act as if this situation is completely impossible…. Even undesirable.
When my dad returned from World War II he vowed that he would never fire a gun again in his life and he didn’t He didn’t want to bring another gun into this world. He saw guns as an absolute failure of civilized society
There seems to be absolutely no desire to reduce the number of guns in the US. The laws simply reflect that.
Until men like you decide that we don’t want to drown in guns in this country, it will never change. Until you’re embarrassed that we are the only first world country with this problem, it will never change.
John, I’ve been a big fan of yours since I started watching GeekBeat back when it started. It’s not what it use to be since the separation of the team but anyways. You’re good when it comes to tech, when it comes to things like this your whole post is nothing but opinions and what you point to as facts are merely matters of interpretation.
If you think we should be able to use whatever means we can to defend ourselves then where is your argument to allow grenades, rocket launchers and tanks to be legal as well? If you’re gonna claim that its stupid to promote a ban on assault rifles than I will say its stupid not to promote the right to own any weapon that we can use to defend ourselves. Imagine how many people would avoid my house if they knew I had grenades and bazookas that I was prepared to use?
You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. You can’t call people like me stupid (because that’s what you did even though you will deny it) for wanting to ban assault rifles without giving an argument why we should keep them and why we should also be allowed other weapons that are currently banned. Otherwise the real hypocrisy is coming from you.
BTW, is you also believe we need to “toughen up a little and stand up and take responsibility for your own safety and protection” then why the hell do we have laws, Gov’t or even the police? I hope you never have to find yourself in a position where you will be able to prove to the world how to “toughen up a little and stand up and take responsibility for your own safety and protection”. You don’t seem the Rambo type that could do anything about it even with an M-16.
Thanks for watching, and reading along all these years. And I’m glad you dropped a comment.
First of all, if you read the post again you’ll see that I’m saying the idea in question here is a horrible, horrible idea. Even the best people sometimes have horrible ideas, and we argue the points in order to sway one another’s opinions. And right now there are so many people acting as if just getting rid of assault rifles will solve the problem, with no one daring to say what a stupid idea that is – so I did.
To answer your last point, you probably don’t recall but I was in the USMC. So actually, yes. If you put an M-16 in my hands I am exceptionally deadly. And I’m also someone who cares about other people enough to risk (or give, if necessary) my own life to protect them. So if you were my neighbor, and the shit hit the fan, believe me you would be glad to have me around to help out. Just because I laugh and joke a lot on TV doesn’t mean I’m not an extremely capable of combat or survival tactics. Which also goes to show that you can never really know what another person is truly capable of.
But all of that is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how skilled we are, we are all equal in the eyes of the law.
Now it is an opinion piece, and I don’t think I presented any material facts requiring support in the argument. But grenades, rocket launchers and tanks ARE INDEED legal to own. So I don’t need to make an argument for them, since they are. But if I were going to make an argument, I’d say the country is hundreds of years old, with millions of people in it, and when was the last time you heard of anyone using a grenade, rocket launcher or tank?
We don’t need to wholesale outlaw things that exist just because they are dangerous. Knives are dangerous, baseball bats are dangerous, cars are dangerous. Heck, if someone wanted to commit a real act of terror, why not just get a huge vehicle like an RV and drive it into a crowd of people at a major sporting event. The death toll would be FAR greater than any assault rifle.
So are we going to outlaw everything? No. So what is the answer?
The answer is the same as it has been for thousands, or millions, of years of human history. We are all responsible for our own self-preservation. The fact that we live in the safest society in the history of the world doesn’t mean we are absolved of our responsibility to remain vigilant and ensure our own survival, and that of those we love.
The police! A very useful tool for stopping crime–if they are there when it is occurring. Problem is most police work occurs after the event. There is an argument to be made for being prepared so as not to be a victim. It doesn’t have to mean be armed to the teeth, but it does mean accepting individual responsibility for one’s safety.
And I personally believe John P. has a point when he talks about not making the assumption others will care for you at the point of crisis. That is the dangerous assumption people make, and the victims of violence are the proof.