Totem wrote:
Is there any situation or circumstance where you unequivocally would agree that the private ownership, sale, or use of a firearm is warranted?
I'm not sure if 'warranted' is the right word. We are basically a free country. If you want to own a gun to play with go for it.
If your gun is stolen and used for bad things (ie when your right to own a gun, infringes on someone else's rights not to suffer a hole in their chest), you should be held accountable.
If a community doesn't want guns around their kids, they also have that right to disallow guns in schools, or libraries or whatever public buildings they want - just like smoking.
If a community wants to arm their teachers, kids, bus drivers and PTA with guns they can do that too.
So why have gun laws/regulations?
1. 'Gun' needs to be well defined and separated out from armament.
2. People need a minimum level of understanding of how a gun works and the responsibilities they take on when they become a gun owner.
Personally, I see no need to have guns. More guns = more people shot - it's that simple. I enjoy plastering trees with my paint ball marker from time to time. When the crazed killer shows up at my door to steal my things and rape my man, I'll do the same - or I'll hit um with a frying pan.
I'd like to see simple, hand gun/shot guns become the weapon of choice for the paranoid masses that feel like they need a bullet to protect themselves and the more complex automatics and semi automatics basically become redefined as something more than a 'gun' and regulated as WMD's, or maybe as Weapons of Moderate Destruction.
I'd really like to see the gun show loophole in the current law closed up. It's pathetic and one of the little things that shames me as an american.