Obama’s gun control steps useful, but Congress needs to act

[petronius]

25. "Do we need them?" isn't the question, the question ought to be "why not?"

Leaving guns for a moment, I will submit that any law or policy restricting any item or behavior ought to be based in a compelling societal goal. In other words, we should never ban anything unless there's a good reason for the ban - and a mere 'nobody really needs this action or item' isn't a good reason.

In the case of these particular rifles, there is no compelling societal reason to keep them out: they are not more dangerous or lethal than any other semi-automatic rifle (despite their 'military' background*), equivalent and identical rifles are widely available, and these are disproportionately under-represented in crime and safety issues. Public safety and crime prevention certainly are compelling societal interests, but the re-import ban doesn't serve those goals in any way.

Guns are common and legitimate items to own, and there's no real reason to object to this particular category of them. People want them (e.g. for target shooting and historical purposes), there's no reason to prevent them, and so the re-import ban is pure theatre (even if the act is "we have too many guns, lets block this tiny set of them to make a statement&quot . It has nothing to do with safety or crime, and is therefore bad policy...


* Elsewhere in the thread I've argued that the nonspecific use of "military" and "military style" is misleading in this context, as in others.