And I think just saying it hasn't happened yet is like saying we haven't had a giant pandemic yet in 2019. I'd rather not wait for a catastrophe to decide we should do something about it.
Point being, a tank like that isn't really worse than a large ANFO truck bomb.
Shooting a gun vs using "household chemicals and gasoline" to attack someone, to say nothing of knives or bare hands, are so apart from each other that I know for a fact that you have no experience with violence or how much easier it is to do violence with a gun vs other methods. You are just parroting teenager-level philosophy.
Besides all that, we have huge amounts of data over more than 100 years. Turns out, and this will shock you, when you have more guns you are more likely to shoot people and kill overall.
I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own an AR-15 they will never use except maybe to kill themselves or a family member (statistically, these are the no1 and no2 most likely people an American is to kill with their gun). Do as you will I guess but almost nobody needs to own a gun privately.
As for the difficulty of killing large numbers of people, I'd stand by the assertion that it's easier with chemicals (explosives or incindiaries) than it is with guns.
I hold a number of political convictions at odds with my personal interest, or which could/will hurt me as an individual in the future, as do many around me. But I stand by them because they would bring us closer to nation in-which I'd be happy to live.
I'm firmly on the side of gun ownership. I'd like the NFA to be revised or repealed so as to make it more coherent, and less restrictive.
Nevertheless, I can respect the parent's position, because their experience doesn't make them hypocritical or subtract from their point (though it can be used to) so much as it's a sign of social conscientiousness, and a willingness to potentially put what they believe to be the needs of the whole before the needs of the self.
If you want to restrict the rights afforded by the 2nd amendment, would you like to restrict some others too? After all, the "freedom of the press" was designed at a time when newspapers were literally printed on a printing press. The founders couldn't have imagined the internet, so do people really need access to such a powerful way of disseminating information?
At least you admit it.
There are ways to do this. You can get a supermajority in congress to agree with you, or you can get 34 state legislatures to agree to call a convention of states. Then, and only then, you can change the constitution.
Barring that, no law or executive order can restrict the second amendment and be constitutional. Fortunately our current president has appointed justices who will ensure this remains true.
You can also just suspend parts at will during a pandemic.
> no loss of free speech or press and no descent into tyranny
That's a good one!
Not saying it isn't still one of the best places. But the trajectory is sadly quite clear.
Slippery slope. Keep talking about how you're fine with some people killing other people but not different people killing other people, it's a philosophical point and has something resembling a legs and not a total logical fallacy.
You don’t have the smallest chance of defending yourself from the government, the only thing gun ownership does is let people shoot each other for no good reason. This is an incontrovertible fact proven by statistics of gun ownership countries a.k.a. the US versus others.
Millions of lightly armed people have stood up well to the US military. What you're talking about isn't a fact at all -- it is a myth, that overwhelming technology can decisively determine the outcome of wars. It is certainly a factor but there is no way F-35s would be sent to bomb houses (for example): the cost, relative scarcity and long periods of maintenance for advanced weapons systems like that are all factors that limit their deployment. In limited war -- which is what all insurrections are -- application of advanced weapons is difficult.
If you switched that up for a "Tyrone" you'd get flagged pretty quickly.
Try not to bring your tired culture-war tropes to Hacker News. The rest of the internet is lousy with it, you might be happier out there.
Treating every gun as though it were a clear, present danger, is no more reasonable than treating every car that way. There are ~75 million gun owners in the USA; they are overwhelmingly harmless. Targeted policy is how you address something that is occasionally misused; and targeted policy seems to be the one thing that people keen on gun control do not want to think about.
I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own an AR-15 they will never use except maybe to kill themselves or a family member (statistically, these are the no1 and no2 most likely people an American is to kill with their gun).
It's true that most people who die from firearms are people ending their own lives; but the next largest group are criminals shooting one another, not "family members". The average American, not otherwise inclined to end their own life, is very unlikely to be shot with a gun.
The way you are defining "use" in your statement is just wrong. People who don't shoot other people still "use" their guns, just for sport or for hunting. It's like you're saying the only people who "use" guns are killers. What if we applied the same concept to another area? "I don't want people to die because Bubba finds it badass to own a Cessna they will never use except maybe to crash and kill themselves or a family member...". It seems absurd. There is a diminishing returns element to policy and you just can't write them in a such a way that it perfects safety.
And if guns don't kill people, what vital purpose do they serve? Defend your home with a bow and arrow because it's exactly as effective as an AR-15 with 100-round clip according your reductive assertion.