Political Controversy: Gun Control

My opinion: All guns should be allowed. I just don’t think that allowing legal firearms causes enough damage to warrant their ban. If we ban all guns and allow police to carry weapons then only people who will have guns are the police and criminals and if that happens, it won’t belong before the two become indistinguishable. The police will have such a power imbalance compared to normal people that you are bound to get corrupt cops. When corruption gets bad then even the good cops become a little corrupt. In the end pretty much only criminals will have guns.

Even if the cops somehow resist the power the guns has, then any petty crook that has a firearm is almost certain that his victim will be unarmed. If they enter a home and hold the occupants hostage, they know the resistance will be minimal. At this present time that is the most likely way to get shot. Most people (not backed up by statistics) keep their guns in their homes, locked or hidden away. As it is most weapons obtained by career criminals are illegal, so it isn’t that hard to obtain a weapon illegally.

Emil Dechebal Matasareanu and Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr

An assault weapon ban seems reasonable, because they are a bit unnecessary. However if some one needs an assault weapon to commit a crime they aren’t going to purchase it legally it’s too easy to trace. Take the in the famous North Hollywood Shootout, the two perpetrators, Emil Dechebal Matasareanu and Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr bought the firearms illegally from some one who obtained them at a gun show. So it’s not so much that anybody would need assault and automatic weapons, but some people enjoy having them for legitimate reasons e.g. collecting and range shooting. My personal belief is that unless something poses a significant threat to some one else’s life or property it should be allowed and I do not believe that assault weapons in themselves pose a significant threat.

However I do want to say that there should be heavy controls on assault weapons: heavy taxes and waiting periods. The taxes should go to law enforcement and the waiting periods allow for a background check both would be more so than say shotguns and handguns. We have the constitutional right to bare arms so if you are going to restrict that right you better have a damn good reason.

The main thing that you need to understand about this is that I believe that those gun toting redneck militia nuts have a point. The government is run by people they decide who to vote for and ultimately how much power that person has. The majority of people in the US are idiots, racists, and/or, close-minded religious nuts. With in that demographic there is a lot of fear, which leads them to believe politicians who clam they need emergency powers, which then leads to a fascist police state. So not only do I believe that these militias have point but also that restricting guns, in a way, creates a need for those guns. I would like to make it clear that I do not agree with the methods of most of the militias nor their extreme nature, but I do agree with their central belief that the government needs to be held to the standards dictated by the constitution.

Updates: (Last updated 11/09/2008 5:30pm CST)

response to a comment by the lion

Making things harder for criminals is a good thing but my point is that it isn't really making it harder. Career criminals are the main users of assault weapons and they obtain them almost entirely through illegal means. So maintaining a controlled legal method of obtaining them isn't really dangerous.

Given the current state of affairs in the this country if you execute an outright ban of firearms then given a generation plus maybe a few years I believe you will start to see abuse from police (provided police regulation remains the same). This is based on the belief that power corrupts it just takes time.

The problem with predicting the affects of gun crimes is that the statistics behind them are complicated. I think a good allegory to the long term affects of gun bans are the local gun ordinances. In a town near to where I live, they enacted a restrictive gun ordinance in the town and over the next two years crime rates rose. If you ban hand guns then yes for a few years it will be hard to obtain a gun but given time illegal channels will develop and the ease will increase. The affects of gun bans are long term and take time to develop. I'm not saying the what I propose as examples of the bad effects are certainly going to happen but that they can happen.

I would love to see where you are getting your information about these countries with bans by the way. I have had some difficulty finding clear statistics about the nature of crimes in the countries with gun bans. I have heard it three ways for each country: negative affect on crime, positive affect on crime, or no affect/unclear affect on crime. In 2 out of the three ways I have heard, the proper course of action would have been to allow guns.

Actually the Constitution does in fact allow for individuals to have guns the. Constitution only cited the need for militias as the reason, but the exact words were

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. "

This has consistently been the interpretation of the Supreme Court.