that's why we need dialogue instead of rhetoric. How much is enough? How much is too much? What is the criteria for "mentally unstable"? (a proposal to ban mentally unstable people from owning guns has been discussed). I was diagnosed with PTSD. Is that going to stop me from owning a gun? We need to talk about this. A rational conversation. Flag waving and declarations of "There's going to be another 1776!" isn't helping anything. Just today some fool said he was going to start killing people. All that does is create more fear and generates knee jerk legislation that doesn't help anyone.
I agree entirely with the spirit of this post. Part of the difficulty in having the dialogue is finding if there even is a place of overlap, of possible compromise. What freezes my marrow is the Ratchet of gun laws worldwide ... they only tighten. So i will admit to a slippery-slope mentality.
That being so, I am not intransigent. i will accept a high level of gun control if and only if police are held to the civilian standard. I passionately reject a double standard for nonmilitary uniformed folks. In CA, for example, any cop can have an AR-4 but no civilians. This strikes me as unfair and a bit corrupt. More to the point, it signals to me an unwillingness by policymakers to put their money where their mouths are. I respect Britain's gun laws because they have an unarmed police force: the police are citizens who serve and not some special privileged class. They're of the people.
Contrast with Japan, which has the strictest gun laws in the world and still arms its police patrols. I am a bit amazed by this: in an essentially gunless society, what is the reason to have the cops carry them?
I am tempted to talk about the Second and what it means, but I and others have posted about this, and I would rather not inflict the redundancy.
But at some point the discussion must turn to irreducible rights. What, if any, are these? Without them, there is no legal or moral impediment to banning all sales and ultimately criminalizing possession.
I doubt that the lawmakers would liberalize carry laws for alternative weapons, such as a
katana. I see a need for permitted carry of deadly force when I look at violent crime stats in other developed countries following gun restriction. I'm nothing special with a bladed weapon but am a good and deliberate shot with a handgun. It would be my chosen instrument of defense. cn