This is your argument for assault weapons?

Oct 27, 2008 09:29

So this weekend an 8-year-old was killed when he was shot in the head. By an oozie. That he was firing. With adult supervision.

At a gun show.

Morons.

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Comments 19

miusheri October 27 2008, 14:58:03 UTC
An Uzi, in an eight year-old's hands? I'd say that's weapons-grade FAIL right there.

Definitely the fault of whomever was supervising that. Still not a valid argument for taking guns away from everyone else.

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atomox October 27 2008, 15:14:42 UTC
Not all guns. I understand we have a right to possess such things. However, there is absolutely no need for such excessively powerful guns. My mall was victim to a shooting a few years back from a kid with a semi-auto rifle, which had shortly beforehand been made legal while being previously illegal. There's no reason for it. We can stick to rifles and hand guns.

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miusheri October 27 2008, 15:28:42 UTC
Sure... until a criminal or corrupt military/police force starts mowing us down with automatic weaponry, tanks, etc. that we law-abiding citizens can't obtain.

"When you outlaw X, only outlaws will have X." There's a lot of truth to that.

Think back to the War of Independence. The colonists faced many harsh disadvantages. Do you think they would have won if their weaponry was inferior to what the British were packing?

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atomox October 27 2008, 15:52:12 UTC
I disagree, because we already cannot possess many of the weapons the military does. And for good reason.

Additionally, I have friends that are cops. Their life is in much greater danger because people have guns at all, let alone assault rifles. There's such a thing as excessive, and I think assault weapons fit that bill. I would argue that the National Guard is our well regulated militia. Does anyone know if there was a National Guard back when they wrote the Constitution, and if it was nearly this extensive?

Either way, you want to balance the power of the Government with the people? Get involved, and get others involved. I'm sorry, but so much of America does not, and we are all being hypocrites if we cling to our last resort without making any attempt to actively participate in the very responsibility that was set in place to avoid such a last resort.

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phoenyxraine October 27 2008, 14:59:26 UTC
Wow that is massively stupid, but I agree, one incident isn't really enough to blanket the entire issue.

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t3knomanser October 27 2008, 15:07:36 UTC
Here's a list of things wrong with this picture:
You didn't provide a source link.
It's Uzi.
In most jurisdictions, it is illegal for anyone under 12 to fire a firearm.
Most gunshows do not have ranges. That's pretty unusual in and of itself. The range operator deserves a cockpunch more so than anyone else involved. Your range, your responsibility.
Amazingly, safety related accidents happen in any situation where people are handed dangerous equipment. From cars, to half-empty fuel tanks, blow torches and nail guns.

Finally, the argument for assault weapons is this: the citizens may, at some point, need to kill police, politicians, members of the US military, or repel foreign invaders. I'm not a big fan of trying to pretty up the language. People have the right to own guns so that they can kill cops, if needed.

Ballot box, jury box, ammo box.

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phoenyxraine October 27 2008, 15:14:06 UTC
Finally, the argument for assault weapons is this: the citizens may, at some point, need to kill police, politicians, members of the US military, or repel foreign invaders. I'm not a big fan of trying to pretty up the language. People have the right to own guns so that they can kill cops, if needed.<---

I figure if that happened the citizens, guns or not, would be totally screwed. Cops and members of the military are trained operatives. Especially the military. Very few civilians have that level of training. They also have superior equipment in all sorts of ways.

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t3knomanser October 27 2008, 15:19:22 UTC
Doesn't really matter. If it comes to that, do we just not do anything?

There are a couple of things to keep in mind:
1) Traditional military operations don't generally work well against an insurgent populace (see: Iraq)
2) In such a situation, one would imagine that a large number of military and police personnel would side with the citizenry.
3) It has happen in the past century and turned out successfully.

Yes, within the last 60ish years, there was an armed revolt on US soil where WWII vets took up arms against the official government of their locale to secure free and open elections. It's known as The Battle of Athens, GA. In that case, they didn't have their own firearms, but a sympathetic National Guardsman looked the other way when they "borrowed" weapons from the National Guard post.

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phoenyxraine October 27 2008, 15:26:11 UTC
Well I'm not arguing against the point, just saying that if we really had an issue like that on a large scale, most civilians are all kinds of screwed, guns or not. Iraq's social climate is fairly different from the United States. I wouldn't count on my one friend I have who owns a gun saving my ass if there was an armed conflict with either the police or the military. Most of the people I know and myself would just be dead. All I'm sayin' >D But thanks for the info, that was interesting.

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lizzytish October 30 2008, 02:20:27 UTC
It's a tough boundary to define; what kinds of guns we can or cannot own and operate. My concern is, once our politicians start picking away at assault weapons, what's next? This issue isn't just about banning different types of firearms, it's about how our rights get slowly stripped away by the government.
I'm not claiming to have an answer to the whole shindig, but it's something to consider.

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atomox October 30 2008, 02:33:35 UTC
I dunno about that. That argument, too, is a slippery slope. The government is doing some bad stripping of other rights for less ethical reasons, and yet people don't take it as seriously or with as much voice as the gun issue. Digital rights, privacy and fair use, to name a few. Thank God people are so vocal about gay rights.

I think that, within reason, the government should limit some of the things that unnecessarily threaten the lives of it's citizens. Yes, we need to walk a fine line between the protection of our citizens and the protection of their freedoms. But why does it have to be all or nothing? I think some legislation is reasonable without assuming that the government is going to screw us.

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