One man’s reasonable is another man’s piss off
XRLQ lists what he terms a few types of gun control that really do make sense, or at least should be given credit for not being inherently unreasonable. Publicola thinks he’s full of crap and calls a flag on the play for name calling. Give them a read. I left some comments at XRLQ’s.
XRLQ claims that the ideas aren’t necessarily ones that he agrees with but that they aren’t unreasonable. I tend to agree with the stated positions on background checks, CCW licenses, and gun bans for felons (depending on the felony and length of the ban). However, the disagreements come from:
Banning plastic guns: On the surface, reasonable sounding. Then the government will take over and determine what percentage of plastic without any regard for the gun’s ability to set off metal detectors. They do something similar now with imported semi-autos by mandating that only a certain number of parts can be foreign, as though that matters at all in terms of a gun’s functionality. Of course, these guns don’t exist so we may as well ban sharks with laser beams on their heads too. Also, given the spirit of what this ban attempts, what about pen guns, credit card guns, and briefcase guns? Currently, such guns require a $5 transfer tax and approval from the ATF.
Registration: I only oppose registration to the extent it could be a vehicle for confiscation, which is what registration has a history of becoming.
Assault rifles (real ones, not those lookalikes covered by the now dead assault weapons ban): I want the Hughes Amendment repealed and the $200 NFA tax repealed. There has been one NFA weapon used in a crime. The system seems to work.
DC gun ban: Repeal it.
Regular capacity magazines: I find this one to be unreasonable. First, what is a high capacity magazine? It’s a hard term to define. The restriction of 10 imposed by the Assault Weapons Ban was random or based what they thought congress would approve. An AR15 is designed with a 20 or 30 round magazine in mind. That is not high capacity that is regular capacity. Maybe it could mean Beta C mags, which hold 100 rounds (and, coincidentally, are hard to load).
The anti-gun crowd is not about reasonable gun control. The are about banning gun ownership outright. Any law that restricts gun ownership (no matter how unreasonable) gets their support. If they were serious about reasonable measures, maybe some compromise could be reached. But they are not.
XRLQ didn’t even mention the private transfer provision of the law (AKA gun show loophole).
December 13th, 2004 at 10:25 am
Weekly Check on the Bias
Welcome to the December 13th edition of my (nearly) weekly check on the bias in media against guns and the Second Amendment. I’d like to start off by issueing a… Press Release: From: Alphecca International To: All members of the…
December 13th, 2004 at 11:01 am
AFAIK, the term “plastic” gun is a misnomer, as the existing law doesn’t ban a particular amount of plastic, or any other specific substance. What it does do is ban guns that can escape metal detectors. As long as no such guns exist, the law bans nothing, but may help to prevent them from being invented in the first place.
As to DC, we’re in agreement. That example was sarcastic.
December 13th, 2004 at 1:38 pm
XRLQ seems to be missing the most salient point — the Second Amendment is not about defense, it is about offense. The point of the Second Amendment is killing police. It is about keeping the authorities on notice — anytime the people tire of your shenanigans, they can rise up and slay you in great numbers in a loud grotesque manner. The state is barelling along towards ending that status quo as quickly as possible, but I’m not going to cooperate. In fact, if it ever looks like they might end the status quo, I will be “invoking” the Second Amendment before they have a chance.