Jophiel wrote:
Lefein wrote:
Well, not all assault rifles use the smaller round. In my case, I have an assault rifle that I can also use for hunting (by merit of skill, granted) and plan on upgrading to a bullpup 7.62 carbine to be even better at.. well.. both purposes.
I'm not arguing
you specifically. I'm just saying that "I can kill deer with it" is a poor argument if another class of firearm can kill deer just as, if not more, effeciently. I mean, I'm sure I could pound tacks with the back end of pistol but "I can hit small nails with it" isn't much of an argument when I can just buy a tack-hammer.
I'm not "afraid of" assault rifles. Beyond threads like this, I don't spend any of my time thinking about them. But in threads like this, I have yet to see much legitimate civilian need for them. I'm willing to admit that "need" shouldn't be the sole determiner of whether we can own something or not but, if their harm outweighs their good, the
lack of need starts to play a part in it. That's really the discussion we should be having in my opinion.
And that is where the real catch 22 is when it comes to gun control. How will we ever quantify crime prevention? I'm sure there are a plethora of cases where someone felt threatened and bought an assault rifle where the threatee decided the person wasn't such a soft target anymore. There are probably documentable instances where someone ended a standoff by pulling one out on a robber/rapist/general scaliwag much less actually firing the thing, but that's only one very very small facet of personal protection. There's an endless debate on whether or not actually "advertising" the fact you have such a weapon deters or causes more trouble for the owner. The only tangible number we could ever pull out is the number of gun related crimes caused by assault weapons. Last statistics I saw, that number was hovering in the range of about 15%.. Which pretty much means more people get stabbed every year than get shot with an assault rifle out of malice.
Again, even from this we must also counterbalance the anti-personnel use of these weapons with their various other uses, of which hunting is also one. All I'm saying is, I'm not out there preaching that assault rifles save lives.. But to think that owning one is a one way road to crime and destruction is a pretty silly assumption. With all of these weapons that are in circulation now, America should be looking like the old West if this were the case. That being said, actually having some numbers on the issue should clarify either stance. At a glance, it would seem that a rather disproportionate number of gun related crimes are actually carried out using pistols, which no one is arguing about banning on a national scale.
Last, but certainly not least, is the Columbine incident. No amount of gun control laws could prevent the determination of two very mentally ill teenagers from wreaking havoc on their school. There is literally not a single thing that can stop a murderous criminal from buying any sort of weapon out of the back of a van and preying on the unarmed (or dare I say it, the disarmed). Now, I think taking this to the extreme and saying every fourteen year old should go packing to school isn't what anyone wants. However, we must also look at the Virginia Tech massacre and see that the overly strict gun controls on campus also led to an incident that can best be described as a shark let loose on a bowl of goldfish. Time and time again, we see gruesome evidence that gun control simply does not work as it is intended. My (probably) gross simplification is that criminals simply don't mind breaking the law.. If someone is determined to murder (or even commit suicide in the process) then tacking on a few more years for a firearm violation isn't the kind of deterrence either side of the gun control issue are honestly looking for.
