The Second Amendment and common sense
Be vewwy quiet, I'm hunting well-ahmed wabbits!
Anyone who has frequented Left of Centrist knows that I am a strong advocate for the United States Constitution. That includes every single amendment, including the second which reads:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
In other words, neither I nor the Constitution have a problem with people bearing arms. However, there are limits. Just as we all have freedom of speech, we do not have the right right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater or use our freedom to incite others to riot or break the law. Using this same logic, just because we have the right to bear arms, we should not assume that right includes military style assault rifles.
Just what is the purpose of an assault rifle? Its very name should answer that question. The right to bear arms assumes we have a right to defend ourselves or use a weapon for the purpose of hunting or target practice, not the right to assault others with weapons.
As I am writing this, there is a dramatic rise in the purchase of automatic weapons and other guns around the country. Many fear an Obama administration will curtail the rights of individuals to possess weapons. There may be a little truth to this. I do think Obama will reinstate Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban that was overturned by George W. Bush, but it won’t go any further than that.
This past September, during a campaign event in Virginia, Obama said, “I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.”
Yet the NRA has been pushing the rumor than Obama will do more. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said, “Based on his voting record, his administration would be the most anti-gun in United States history.”
This paranoia has spawned the rise in gun sales. In a time of economic stress, people are foregoing purchases of new cars, furniture, clothing, and other items, but they have no problem taking out loans to buy weapons that cost well over $1000.
A look at the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System reveals that there were 8.4 million background checks between January 1 and September 28, compared with 7.7 million in the same period last year. That’s a nine percent increase. But once people were 
certain that Obama would probably win the election, the increase has been even more dramatic. During the month of October there was an increase of more than 100,000 gun purchases over the total gun sales in October 2007.
I’ve been a gun owner since my 10th birthday when I received a single shot .22 caliber Winchester rifle. Growing up on a farm, we used to go into our backyard and plink at cans, pennies, and other targets. I’ve never been a hunter, but I don’t oppose hunting – in fact I enjoy a good venison chili. When I went to work for a detective agency right out the the US Navy, I carried a .357 Magnum under my jacket, but was never forced to pull it out on the job.
Today we keep a weapon in a locked metal box that we store in the attic. We used to keep it in a drawer next to the bed, but once children were added to the equation, the weapon was relegated to an area the children have no access to. That may seem a little hypocritical when you consider the fact that I was raised around guns, but I was taught at a very early age the dangers of firearms and the proper way to use a rifle – my family didn’t own handguns or shotguns.
Children and handguns are not a good combination. A child who attended the daycare where my wife works lost his life because of a loose handgun.
Another thing that has gun enthusiasts in an uproar is the law that requires a background check before they can purchase a weapon at a gun show. Who cares? What’s the problem with that? As long as you don’t have anything to hide and you’ve been a fine upstanding citizen, you’ll still get your weapon after the check. Besides, we learned in late October just how dangerous gun shows can be.
On October 26, Christopher K. Bizilj, an 8-year old Connecticut boy was killed during a gun show at the Westfield Sportsmans Club in Massachusetts after his family and a vendor allowed him to fire a 9 mm automatic Micro UZI. The recoil from the gun forced the gun backward and the boy shot himself in the head.
There is a big difference between gun rights and gun stupidity.
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12 Responses to “The Second Amendment and common sense”
Funny but seeing Elmer reminded me of that very good video you did with him and Bugs! I am an advocate for gun ownership but not assault weapons. In the case you mentioned the kids father and the instructor should be held accountable.
There is no way in hell an 8 year old should have one in their hands without an adult suppressing the muzzle. It had to be on automatic too which is another no no!
I remember firing on auto and the muzzle climbed even for me! My son just bought his wife a pistol which is okay but he bought my 5 year old grand daughter a pink 22 rifle which I do not like and I will choke the big bastard next time I see him as he laughs!
Anyway I do not trust kids with guns and he better not move an eye off her plus you hear too many horror stories though he is the EOD leader and quite responsible. I still do not trust kids with any weapon not even a knife which is another story!
Oh, this drives me nuts. . . I quote: “As I am writing this, there is a dramatic rise in the purchase of automatic weapons and other guns around the country.”
Automatic weapons are machineguns. I’m sure you meant semi-automatic. These distinctions do matter. But there’s more. . .
Quote: “Just what is the purpose of an assault rifle? Its very name should answer that question.”
Well, properly speaking an “assault rifle” is a kind of machinegun, which have been heavily restricted in the USA since 1934, and new ones haven’t been made available to private citizens since 1986. You can’t buy assault rifles at your local gun shop. It’s illegal. It has been illegal for a very long time, and nobody has seriously proposed changing that.
However. . . Obama did say during his campaign that he would support a ban on “assault weapons”. (Ironically, McCain also said he’d support the same.) So. . . What is an assault weapon?
There’s no such thing. It’s a name which was invented in the 1990s by the anti-gun faction, in order to make a lot of guns sound evil and scary. And it worked. . . They wrote a law with a complex, arbitrary, mostly cosmetic definition of “assault weapons” designed to snare a wide range of guns: mostly semi-auto rifles, but also some pistols and shotguns. These firearms, which had previously been available for many decades without arousing controversy, suddenly became a subject of panic — because they now sounded bad.
First the anti-gunners come after semi-auto rifles and carbines (assault weapons), then they come after shotguns (riot guns), then handguns (saturday night specials), then bolt-action deer rifles (sniper rifles), then ammunition (cop-killer bullets!). . . It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy to demonize and ban one group of firearms after another until there’s nothing left. George Orwell would be proud.
The facts: Semi-auto rifles have been widely available to the public for about 100 years now — and particularly since WW2 when surplus M1 Carbines came onto the market. They have generally been used responsibly, and have never been commonly used in crime. Today we use AR-15 rifles here in Texas for shooting coyotes and wild hogs, not to mention service rifle competition.
The AR-15 and AR-10 have, in recent years, been adapted to fill an ever-expanding role with hunters. I’ve heard some people argue that, “you can’t use an assault weapon for hunting”. So here’s a surprise: some of these new ARs are outstanding big game rifles. They are fairly expensive, highly accurate, definitely not concealable, and nothing a gang-banger would be remotely interested in having. Where’s the logic of restricting “assault weapons” such as these?
Tony, I have fired an AK-47 semi-automatic and I can guarantee that the weapon fires just as fast as I could pull the trigger for each shot – and in my case, that was very fast (10-15 shots in less than three seconds). As for the term assault weapon, this also refers to semi-automatic rifles. Even the Federal government uses this designation – witness the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban or AWB as they call it. George W. Bush also used this term when he allowed the ban to expire in 2004.
Jim, like I said, I owned a rifle when I was 10-years old. But we live in a different world today. If I owned a farm, I would probably allow my children to start plinking when they reached the age of 10, but I would do as my grandfather did and teach them gun safety and proper care and maintenance of a firearm.
The federal Assault Weapons Ban had as much to do with weapons used for assaults as the Patriot Act has to do with patriotism. It’s the kind of word game that’s played every day in Washington DC. However, the US Constitution only gives Congress the power to write laws — not rewrite dictionaries.
Tony, then without getting into semantics, just let me say again, there is no reason for our citizenry to own semi-automatic rifles. If you’re not good enough to hit your target with one shot, then you have no reason to be hunting. There are plenty of high powered rifles out there that are accurate without having to rely on an AK-47. Besides, that, when Christopher Bizilj died he was shooting a fully automatic submachine gun. The people behind that show and Christopher’s father should be held accountable for that kid’s death.
You say, “there is no reason for our citizenry to own semi-automatic rifles”. Well. . . That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. The millions of people who have bought semi-automatic rifles would, I’m sure, disagree. They must have had some reason for shelling out their money.
The real problem comes when you start to imply that “there is no reason for our citizenry to *be* *allowed* *to* own semi-automatic rifles”. That’s a place you really, really don’t want to go. We’ve had them for just about 100 years now, there are millions of them in circulation, and a lot of people who don’t plan on giving them up.
We had a warning during the Clinton administration. Ruby Ridge, Mount Carmel, the whole militia movement, and even the Oklahoma City bombing all trace back to Clinton’s anti-gun policies, including the AWB law. However, that was relatively quite mild. It didn’t call for confiscating anything, and guns functionally similar to the banned ones were still available. (Most people found the magazine capacity restriction was the most irksome part.) Now try imagining what it would lead to if the government went around trying to collect them!
As for Christopher Bizilj. . . From what I’ve seen, most pro-gun people would fully agree that his father and the person who handed him the Mini Uzi should be held accountable. I’m not sure how there can be any kind of legislative response to that, though. As a teacher once explained to me, “There’s no law against dumb.” This incident was tragically, spectacularly, freakishly dumb. I’ve never heard of anything quite like it.
Once again, I ask, what is the point of owning such a rifle. And your last response begs another question. What is so irksome about restrictions in magazine capacity? Are people too lazy to reload during target practice? Are they afraid the first twelve holes in the rabbit were not enough? I can only think of one legitimate reason for having such weapons with higher capacity magazines and that is in a fire fight. If that is the case, then these people have some serious psychological problems.
What is the point of having a powerful sports car? What is the point of having a swimming pool? These items have caused a lot more deaths than semi-auto rifles, and they are things nobody really needs, yet I don’t see any organized effort to forbid the public from having them.
The *point* is that many people want these things. Many people are accustomed to having them, and nobody has come up with a compelling argument — a sensible argument — for banning them. I haven’t heard it from you yet. What benefit can you honestly, realistically expect to see from such a law?
As for magazine restrictions. . . It was irksome because we weren’t able to get things we’d been accustomed to having for many years, or else the price (of pre-ban mags) became outrageous. It was irksome because law enforcement were still entrusted to have these without restriction, and ordinary people weren’t. It was irksome because it was so arbitrary. Why 10 rounds? Why not 15? And it was mostly irksome because nobody could demonstrate that there was any benefit gained from the whole thing.
The most interesting results, from my viewpoint, were on handguns. Many 9mm and 40 S&W combat pistols are designed to have 15-round magazines. Suddenly new pistols coming onto the market were hobbled; they didn’t sell well, since full-capacity magazine weren’t available for them. A lot of buyers instead switched to M1911 pistols, based on the theory that a few big bullets is better than a few small ones. It really brought back the 45 ACP which previously had been fading.
Much of the story of the AWB was a story of circumvention — the gun industry and gun buyers adapting and sidestepping the law in various ways (which is the most natural thing in the world for them to do), and the anti-gun faction shrieking in outrage because of it, and crying for still more restrictions.
If semi-auto rifles were banned, can you imagine the surge in sales for slide-action rifles and shotguns? Do you have any idea how many projectiles a 12 gauge pump gun can put into the air per second? I’m sure the anti-gunners would be coming back soon with a ban on “rapid-fire weapons” and “riot guns”. Where does it end? Logically, that can only end when they’ve banned everything that shoots.
Oh, gee. The police can use weapons we don’t have. How awful for us. What if we got into a fire fight with police? They would have an unfair advantage.
How many people use swimming pools and sports cars to purposely kill someone?
Look, I’m not anti-gun. I’m just opposed to anything the bad guys could get their hands on to make killing easier. I’m also not saying they won’t get their hands on them anyway, but the more there are, the easier it will be for them to procure them.
Look, there are a lot of things I would like to have, but just because I want them doesn’t mean I should have them.
Let’s just agree to disagree.
I think the gun dealers are laughing all the way to the bank, and all they have to do is keep this “Obama is going to take away all the guns” myth going and going.
I don’t own multiple AK-47’s to hunt rabbits with. I have them to kill a$$holes that would do myself or my family harm. Simple, really.
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