To Harry Rossman, If we wait for that perfect society

What perfect society?? My points are the limits of law and personal responsibility to yourself, family and community.

Food for thought question: Assume for the sake of argument that you are an armed police officer in uniform. You walk around a corner straight into a holdup. While the crimininals are busy taking your possessions, how much law is at that exact place and time????

One other thing, a response like yours never spells out just what is your responsibility is.

I do not entirely see what you mean by this. However, the basis of my actions are civics and government 101. All of us must begin with definitions and structures we can initially agree with: if not how to implement them.

it would have evolved upon too many bodies for my taste

Not that I am advocating anything at this point in history, but the question comes to mind: would the American Revolution have been “…too many bodies…”??

As I see it, there are three scenarios:

1) A guy buys firearms on the legal market and smuggles them into the inner city and sells them at a profit.

2) A guy buys firearms on the legal market and smuggles them into the inner city and sells them at a loss.

3) A guy buys firearms on the legal market and trows them away in the inner city.

In scenario 1), the man is a smuggler, like Joe Kennedy or John Hancock and is a boon to society.

In scenario 2), the man is a charitable smuggler, kind of like a mixture of Joe Kennedy and his gradnson of that same name.

In scenario 3), the man is a litterer, and possibly crazy.

And yes, I don’t believe any weapon should be illegal, as I discuss in my first post at the Liberty Papers.

Steve S.
I am not most people or a lawyer. I do think there are more people like me than the ones you mention. Many like me that have practically had murder on there door step.

To Harry Rossman, If we wait for that perfect society, it would have evolved upon too many bodies for my taste. One other thing, a response like yours never spells out just what is your responsibility is. Is it that those people should do something. Do what? What I believe to be done take hands on and not one hand. The individual one at a time is the one that produces change, not the one who pontificate about his personal responsibility. It is aways someone else’s fault and not yours. That’s why I said love it or leave it. America can not exist without effort.

I do believe that certain so called law abiding gun buyers dump guns in certain neighborhoods.

What are you suggesting with this statement. Who do you suspect is ‘dumping’ guns in these neighborhoods?

What, do they drive by and toss them out the window? Do they go out to the ‘burbs and buy expensive guns, then resell them in the bad neighborhoods at a loss? Who’s “dumping”?

First of all, most people and organizations advocating for increased firearm regulation do not support the right of individual firearm ownership. A great way to determine real the intent of such people is to look at their position on DC v Parker/Heller – do they recognize an individual’s “right to self-defense”? Or do they believe that any regulation is justified as long it has the possibility (real or imagined) of reducing gun violence?

In fact, most gun-control proponents believe that gun ownership is an antiquated practice that has little place in modern society, and even if not their stated goal, they would generally admit that they would have no problem with the complete elimination of private firearm ownership in America.

This ambivalence (or outright hostility) towards the rights of gun owners is revealed in the proposed regulations. Take the popular one-gun-a-month laws: Why is the quota one-per-month instead of one-per-week? If the goal is to constrain gun-trafficking, where is the data that suggests one quota is better than the other? Or is it possible that the gun-grabbers, who consider all gun ownership to be a luxury, find it completely inconceivable that there is any legitimate reason to even own 12 guns at a time, let alone purchase that many in a year?

So, given all this, I tend to look rather poorly upon any new firearm regulation. This does not preclude regulation entirely, but when the Brady Campaign uses the phrase “sensible gun laws”, I know what they really mean is “whatever the hell they think they can get away with” in terms of restricting or eliminating my right to own firearms.

s.s.

The bottom line for all crime is human intent. For those intent on performing a crime, they *will* acquire the tools deemed necessary to perform the deed.

My supporting data for this are the 1940′s and ’50′s. Not just rifles, pistols and shotguns could be obtained via mail order with nothing more than sufficient funds, but surplus military arms were readily available for nothing more. Yet, violent crime as reported today was very rare.

I can very easily sympathize with your view of ‘reasonable’ regulation. But, there is a question. For anyone who can so easily violate the law of murder, just how effective will a law banning and/or controlling firearms will be?

The CDC gives us a hint.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

I didn’t mention “gun culture” but you imply there is another.

That isn’t much of an argument. It seems “the love it or leave it” approach would be better taken up by those advocating gun control — there are a lot of existing countries with much more restrictive gun laws than the U.S., and those countries must be better places to live, right?

I have never understood the fear that most gun control advocates (I don’t know if this includes you, VRB) have towards guns — guns are simple tools, easy to understand, and very safe when a few simple rules are followed. A car is more complex, requires just as much (or more) skill to operate safely, and is potentially just as lethal. Yet most of us are happy to cruise along at 65mph in the middle of a 4-lane freeway, with little worry about the risks involved, but the thought of a guy in the next lane with a gun underneath his seat is more worrisome than the same guy driving distracted while he talks on his cell phone.

All violence, gun related or not, is a problem that can only be solved by addressing much deeper issues in our society. And I find that I am not very interested in talking about those issues when the gun-grabbers start by portraying guns as some evil scourge upon society that only backwards-thinking barbarians would want.

There are some objective principals behind the “gun culture” in America, such as the desire to defend one’s life and property. These kinds of principals should not be abrogated simply because it might be an expedient way to mitigate the symptons of a larger problem.