It is none of our business whether a gun is useful for defense or hunting
If you want to ban a gun then ban a gun.
We, as parts of the aggregate of voters, can ban a gun. We have banned fully automatic weapons and sawed off shotguns, for instance.
But the game of demanding that some gun owner justify himself to you as to why he needs or wants a particular gun is smack dab in the middle of a large area called, "None of your business."
I don't think books by Henry Miller should have been banned. Other people thought they should, and were successful in doing so.
Imagine *me* demanding that *you* give *me* a reason why *you* need to read Henry Miller... and even worse, me explaining that there are other books that would serve whatever purpose you name, as if I lacked the autonomy to pick which book to read.
"Why does anyone need to read Henry Miller? Tolstoy is a better author. Why not read Tolstoy instead? Or is it that you are a sex pervert and want to read Henry Miller for the dirty parts? The bawdiness of Chaucer or frankness of D. H. Lawrence offer as much sex as anyone should need to read about."
And to the gun partisans... when asked to justify your legal ownership of guns, please say, "because I chose to own guns."
90+% of gun owners do not need a gun. If you talk about what you need then you already lost the argument unless you live out in the wilds somewhere.
Do you believe you have rights under the 2nd Amendment? Well, if so, the whole point of rights is that they do not need to be justified.
Why do you need to be Catholic?
Why do you need to belong to the Green Party?
Why do you need to attend a protest march?
Why do you need to write a story about nurses instead of a story about pilots?
Why do you need to make the background of that painting yellow?
If it's a right then argue it as a right.
Providing anecdotes about instances where a gun might be useful is like arguing for abortion rights by citing cases where a woman needs an abortion to save her life. To talk about such need distorts the whole question which is really about choice. Most Republicans are fine with an abortion to actually save the mother's life so pointing out the need encourages an analysis based on need. And that's not the point. Women have a right to choose, themselves, without interference, how to manage their own lives.
Do you have a right of choice to own a gun? Maybe, maybe not. It's an argument to have.
Have that argument, rather than telling tales about heroic acts of self defense and such. Because if argued as to practical need, most guns and most types of gun are not going to pass muster as necessary.
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Wait! It's NOT MY RIGHT to ask my neighbor why he has a Bofors gun in his backyard. Which abuts MY backyard. My bad. I guess I'm reduced to mind-reading.
Name the last time a Henry Miller book murdered 20 children.
My dad commanded a Bofors 40mm AAA gun crew (551st AAA Aw Bn) in WW2 (during the Battle of the Bulge) and I would LOVE to sit in the bucket, squinting thru the sight and lob a few rounds into the air.
Mein Kampf was written by an asshole, not by Miller. 
