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The (ill)Logical End of the “Why Does Anyone Need That Kind Gun?” Argument
David French has an excellent piece in National Review on the new push for gun control within the Democratic Party.
As a doctor, I feel I have a duty to inform the public of what I have learned as I have observed these wounds and cared for these patients. It’s clear to me that AR-15 and other high-velocity weapons, especially when outfitted with a high-capacity magazine, have no place in a civilian’s gun cabinet.
I mean, this sounds good, right? Why does anyone need an AR-15? Why does anyone need high standard capacity magazines? Why does anyone need a gun at all? After all, all we need to do is get rid of these sorts of guns (or guns themselves) and we’ll all be safe, right?
Right?
But where does that slippery slope end? What defines a dangerous weapon? In Britain, for example, they’ve gone from confiscating guns to protecting the good citizens of that country from the horrible menace of the pocket knife to asking people to be on the lookout for people buying … hammers.
This is where the “Why do you need this?” argument ends: With carpenters as potential terrorists. Apparently, the guns in my gun safe are just the same as the hammer and craft knife in my toolbox.
Who knew?
Published in Guns
Because gun control isn’t about stopping gun violence. Those “leaders” on the left know very well that their gun control proposals wouldn’t have stopped recent mass killers.
When one of these idiots steps up and agrees to support vigorous prosecution of straw buyers, I might at least listen to their arguments. Until then not interested.
Besides, as you well know, this is way more about culture than it is about crime or violence.
And don’t forget the acid attacks. You can be an innocent tourist walking down one of the streets of London looking at the sights, and some thug could up and throw acid in your face in your face just for the fun of it.
Should we ban every medical instrument or tool used by abortionists because they have been used to terminate millions of human lives? If somebody then says that those instruments also have legitimate medical uses and that it is the intent and purpose of their use that should be the issue, we should then say “exactly.”
I would like to see a venn diagram of people who decry private gun ownership compared to people who endorse all the socially destructive ideologies and policies that have made gun ownership seem a necessity for so many people who otherwise might not care about owning a gun. Would the overlap be 100%?
About 45 million Americans claim Irish/Scottish ancestry. A strong motivation towards gun rights for those people is the memory that an elected government can choose to starve you to death (25% of Irish were starved by England in 1840s). An armed citizen can (1) hunt and eat (2) revolt against genocide. Not starving is the strongest motivation of all creatures and those that remember will prioritize gun ownership over all other issues. If you think government forced genocide was a one-time English thing, remember that socialist governments committed at least 4 major genocides in the 1900s and now Democrats are openly advocating for socialism. Even today, the people of Venezuela are literally starving under a socialist dictator and that would not happen, if the people were well armed. Think of the 2nd Amendment as genocide insurance. Perhaps Kamala et. al, would benefit by looking at pictures of the 100 million people killed by because they were defenseless against their governments.
Yeah, but at least you weren’t shot. Unless you were.
Just a minor editorial comment: Using that quote from the column immediately after writing “David French has an excellent piece…” made it appear to be a quote from David French, even though from reading lots of his writing I know he wouldn’t say something like it.
My objection is to the idea that the government should be allowed to ban anything I don’t need. By that logic, it would be equally permissible for them to ban pretty much anything except food and water.
And they can only allow you one liter of water per day. The rest is needed for the potato fields, comrade.
The irony is that AR-15 rifles, especially those of the original, select-fire assault rifle variety, are the weapons our Constitution most obviously protects. That is, being the standard military rifle, they’re the most relevant to a militia. It should be obvious our right to own and carry them must not be infringed.
“Excuse me sir. This is a ‘may issue’ hardware store and we are not convinced that your so called ‘construction project’ constitutes a justifiable need for buying a hammer.”
Also, I always carry a pocket knife of some sort and I find them to be useful tools rather than scary weapons . . . at least the poorly maintained ones in my sock drawer
You beat me to it, Bartholomew. As a freedom-loving American, it grinds my gears to hear someone ask, “Who really needs [fill in the blank].” It should be our default position that we are entitled to own or do any thing we please unless there is a darn good reason to forbid it. Need has nothing to do with it. How many pairs of shoes does any woman really need? How many books does anybody really need? How many bottles of wine does anyone really need in their house? Does anybody really need a car with more than 100 horsepower? Our ancestors got by with outhouses, so does anybody really need a house with more than one bathroom? As Bernie Sanders says, “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”
I don’t want some [expletive] government bureaucracy deciding what I do and do not need, so that they can forbid me from having more than they think I need.
The last time I expressed such a sentiment on Ricochet, I found out I was a loathsome libertarian, and not a good conservative at all.
Yeah well, most political labels have a wide range of definitions depending on who you ask. If I gave all my political views to a group of 20 people and asked them to write down on a card a word or two that describes me, you would find at least half a dozen descriptors because people have different views of what the terms mean. If someone on Ricochet loathes me for my views, I can take it. Heck, I found it amusing when @ethompson referred to me as an overweight hippie with a bad haircut.
Damn, you have awesome hair!
And we can all afford to lose a few pounds. Hehe . . .
Hey Randy – lemme know if you need some South Carolina BTUs sent up there. I hear Minnesota is so frozen, the HWX guys can’t submit a new podcast because the electrons in the wiring can’t move . . .
Yeah, the cold is just brutal. Yesterday the windchill was colder than -50 degrees. I don’t know when, but the day will come when we move south.
I’ve got more than a dozen different hammers! Before you know it, someone’s going to issue a Hammer Violence Restraining Order against me. It’s been a while since I’ve done any serious construction, so I’m glad I never got that deadblow (!) hammer I was thinking about. I’d be in the hoosegow for sure!
Flooring purveyor!!!
“I don’t see why you would need this so we’re saying you can’t own it,” is an interesting way to treat free people.
‘Deadblow.’Obviously not a sports-hammer, it’s for killing people – it’s even in the name!
Back when I first moved to New York state (I have since moved out of the state), I was surprised at the number of times when some idea for a new thing came up, the first response from the natives was, “Is that allowed?” They had been conditioned from decades of hyper-regulation to believe that, unless the government specifically allowed it, you couldn’t do it.
In fairness, it is hard to encompass all of the things and sub-things and quasi-things that that are already illegal as our government has a way of categorizing things that is both non-intuitive and rapacious.