(I’m from a country where owning a gun is legal, but controlled, and has no school shootings. We used to have less control, and school shootings happened.)
It's still theorizing because there are no comparable countries to the US that have done it when it comes to the number of guns already out there (300+ million) and the importance of the 2nd amendment to many of the citizens.
>It just required people to prioritise children’s lives over a minority hobby.
If you see it as a "minority hobby" rather than a right, this makes complete sense. Would you also suggest banning protests in response to violence and death at protests because it's even more of a "minority hobby" than gun ownership?
He didn't suggested banning, he suggested controlling them which is extremely different.
I don't know for your country (but I'm pretty sure it's the same), but in mine protest are controlled too. You need to give your plan well in advance and it need to be approved first. You never seen a protest becoming illegal and people getting arrested for it?
And which is the next step for someone who does want to ban it. At least in the US the discussion has reached the point where one side no longer trusts the intentions of the other side, so anything that could eventually help a ban (such as a registry) is seem as being for the purpose of eventually helping a ban. This isn't without reason either, given that many past compromises are now seen as not enough and begun being presented as errors in previous laws that need to be fixed.
It’s been done for hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of millions of guns, and it’s regulation not removing all guns, which is already done in the US, you can’t get a rocket launcher, so why am assault rifle?
No banned guns, just licenses, gun safes, regulation on types, reasonable ownership limits (all farmers I know in Aus have 5+ guns) - that’s all it takes to stop mass shootings.
If it’s a hobby that’s fine, that’s a valid application reason for example, you just have to prove you like guns and go to a range or subscribe to a gun magazine and you can buy them. That 30 minute hurdle provides a barrier to enough people.
The military didn't decide to start having pistol grips on their rifles because it looks cool, vertical foregrips originated in the military and it wasn't because they look cool. I own a .308 rifle with a pistol grip, folding stock, foregrip, bayonet lug, threaded barrel and a 20 round magazine and none of these features are needed for hunting but they are damned convenient for killing people.
You can try to tell me that it's no more deadly than a hunting rifle but there are reasons that the seal team 6 don't go in with hunting rifles and full auto fire isn't the only reason.
I think it's important to recognize that these rifles are more than just hunting rifles and also that we should still be allowed to have them because the second amendment is NOT about hunting.
The features you mentioned:
A 20 round magazine is unrelated to "assault weapons". Those are available for handguns and for hunting rifles without pistol grips as well.
The deadliest war in history, WW2, was fought with rifles without pistol grips (only a few thousand were produced near the end). Not having pistol grips didn't stop soldiers from killing unprecedented numbers of people.
And how many mass killers actually used bayonets or a folding stock?
Just like the 2nd amendment militia arming would have been useless against the German government (like the BEF which had many tanks and planes and heavy weapons) it’s useless today against heavily armed state and modern military equipment (drones, tanks).
Tell that to the Afghans.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-rocket-launcher-gu...
Now people in cities want to solve that by forbidding people outside the cities from owning guns.
I used the word banned meaning "made impossible for a large number of people to own legally". Governments that theoretically allow permits but rarely grant those permits in practice have effectively banned guns.