Reply #30: The gun issue isn't about "all guns" any more than restricting free speech is about "all speech."

[benEzra]

Your questions pre-suppose that gun-control means the banishment of all firearms and the loss of the right to bear arms. It does not. That is the impression that the NRA has been falsely pushing for years. The NRA cares about nothing but the profits of firearms manufacturers.

It is primarily about nonhunting guns, particularly handguns and small-caliber civilian rifles with modern styling. I don't particularly care if you'd "allow" me to own a skeet shotgun or a deer rifle if you want to ban my SAR-1 and my Smith & Wesson. Like most gun owners, I don't hunt and don't shoot skeet; I want to keep my handguns and small-caliber carbines, thanks.

I would point out that Operation Rescue doesn't want to outlaw all abortions either, just elective ones, and the Moral Majority never wanted to ban all books, just the ones with content they found distasteful.

I have never owned a gun, no one in my family has ever owned one, none of my friends have ever owned one; so the mind-set of gun owners is as alien to me as mine is to you. I have lived all over the country, including some supposedly dangerous areas, and have never felt threatened, or been remotely tempted to buy a gun.

If you are interested in understanding gun ownership from this gun owner's perspective, you may find
this post interesting. Shooting is Zen, not Rambo.

Statistics have shown many times that gun owners are far more likely to get shot than non-gun-owners. So the arguement that they provide protection is bogus.

No, they haven't. In fact, that claim is false on its face, since the majority of murder victims in the United States occur in areas and among demographic subsets where the rate of lawful gun ownership is lowest. I am not arguing causation there, merely pointing out the fallacy.

I think you may be thinking of common media popularizations of Arthur Kellermann and Don Reay, "Protection or peril? An analysis of firearms related deaths in the home," New Engl J Med 314: 1557-60 (1986), which has been widely debunked on methodological grounds. If you are not at risk of suicide and are not involved in criminal activity, one can actually argue that there is a net safety benefit.

But however you feel about the benefit/risk ratio, it is a personal choice, and it is my right to choose, as a mentally competent adult with a clean record, whether or not to own and train with a gun for personal protection. My wife and I have both independently chosen to do so. You choose differently; I am fine with that. All I ask is that you do not try to coerce me into living by your choice on that issue.

But, if people want to own them, I have no problem with that. Provided they are not assault weapons, and the owners are sane, law-abiding people who are registered and well-educated in their use, and keep them out of the hands of others. That is all gun control is. Why is that so threatening to gun owners? Do they see it as the first step to losing their weapons altogether? That is the old "slippery-slope" fallacy. There are thousands of laws that have not lead inevitably to stricter ones. Why should gun control laws be any different?

The problem is that you misunderstand the issue. I do not oppose banning "assault weapons" because I think that would be a small step down a slippery slope. I oppose banning "assault weapons" because outlawing the most popular civilian rifles in America is itself completely unacceptable, particularly since rifles are the LEAST misused of all firearms.

FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2006
Table 20, Murder, by State and Type of Weapon (column totals)
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_20.html

Total murders............................14,990.....100.00%
Handguns..................................7,795......52.00%
Other weapons (non firearm, non edged)....2,158......14.40%
Edged weapons.............................1,822......12.15%
Firearms (type unknown)...................1,465.......9.77%
Hands, fists, feet, etc.....................833.......5.56%
Shotguns....................................481.......3.21%
Rifles......................................436.......2.91%

Taking H.R.1022 as the operative definition, considerably more Americans lawfully and responsibly own "assault weapons" than hunt. In light of the above statistics, tell me again why banning the most popular rifles in America is so damn important?

FWIW, this is an "assault weapon." They don't even all have black plastic stocks or handgrips that stick out.

It seems to me that gun owners ought to be the very people who are advocating for sensible, effective gun control legislation. What better way to protect the right to bear arms than to see to it that guns are kept out of the hands of criminals and irresponsible people? If your gun is stolen, don't you want to know that it is registered, so the thieves might get caught? What if it gets used in a crime? Don't you want to be able to prove it was not in your possesion?

If the gun-control lobby were truly interested in sensible, effective gun control legislation, they wouldn't be fighting to outlaw rifle stocks with handgrips that stick out, would they?

The U.S. gun-control lobby has lost sight of its goals. The current goal seems to be to harass legitimate gun owners and place restrictions for restrictions' sake on legitimate gun owners, e.g. outlawing rifles with modern styling, petty restrictions on licensed CHL holders, etc.

The gun owners of the UK and Australia followed your advice. It cost them practically everything.

As far as hunting goes, I recognize the need for a certain number of hunters to keep animal populations in check. Why anyone would enjoy it is beyond me, but hey, different strokes. But there too, I want laws that ensure hunters are well-trained so the animals are killed efficiently and don't die long, slow deaths in agony. I want to be sure that they know what areas they are allowed in. I want to know they aren't alcoholics who are as likely to shoot at me as at a doe.

No argument there.

So, that's my perspective on this issue. Hope this helps.

Thank you for sharing. I think civil discussion between people, even those on opposite sides of contentious issues, shows that there is indeed hope for this country...