@robotdna and others with arguments… I’ll write my arguments below but probably won’t retort do to me feeling down.
Firstly, this posts headline is sensationalized garbage. 'You' might not be mature enough to own a gun but most who use them for home defense purposes are.
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There is no middle ground when it comes to banning guns. The Far-Left, including people like Bloomberg and Pelosi would want nothing else but to ban all semi-automatics. AR-15's are the number one source of home defense in the US. There were 10,000 homicides due to guns last year and a total of 20,000 suicides, something the media and most ignorant people refuse to realize. Some would say that banning guns will help to stop suicide, although this might decrease the amount to a sml. degree almost always violent crime increases, so in my defense I'd say that despite the waiting periods and licensing with safety training, which is always a good idea, the decrease in numbers of suicides is far outnumbered by crimes prevented. You don’t need to have a criminal record to want to kill yourself, so if someone has no criminal record, how are you going to deny them from having a gun without completely abolishing the 2nd amendment. Has anyone considered the ramifications of allowing a constitutional amendment revoked, Would that NOT set a dangerous precedent?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm
Census reports, anywhere from 200,000 and 3 million of using guns defensivley, and to take that away? There's no middle ground with this, yet for some reason many leftists have state legislation in the works proposing to ban the ar-15 from the public. That means you'd take away the most vital and most common home defense weapon in the US. So, my question becomes why ban this rifle, it makes zero sense and I'll tell you why.
Firstly, bolt action is nowhere close to as good as a semi-automatic when it comes to hunting. Most pistols are semi-automatic, yet legislators propose to ban semi-auto's as if they even know what that means. In fact, automatic guns are virtually banned. Why do some of the strictest gun control metropolitan areas have the highest gun violence and highest gun homicide rate? Why does California have the higest gun violence rate and gun homicides compared to almost all other states in the US if they have the strictest gun control in the country. 4 cities, which have the strictest gun control in the country account for 25% of all gun related incidents. France has some of the strictest gun control in the world and yet they still have mass shootings. So, is gun control the answer?
In the case of Chicago, which has the strictest gun laws in the US they've had a total of 500 murders since the beginning of this year. If a criminal wants to kill someone, they will acquire a gun illegally. They will use a car, which in a crowd can be far more deadly than a gun, in the case of NICE which killed 87 people, a knife or machete in the case of the China massacre, which killed 34 or a sword, anything!
The current gun laws, which should be enforced make it impossible for criminals with a record to purchase a gun. Most crimes are committed with illegally obtained firearms in the hands of people wo are prohibited from purchasing or possessing them. Laws only affect people who obey them... not criminals. It's an incredibly simple concept that many liberals fail to understand.
So, handguns and shotguns account for most gun related incidents in the US. Over 90%! Rifles account for 2.4%, and the AR-15 being a subset of a rifle is even less so. So banning this from the public, which of course it being the most common home defense weapon makes little sense, when it comes to COMBATING GUN VIOLENCE. Even if a ban meant getting rid of the AR-15 and high powered rifles, very few mass shootings are conducted with high powered rifles. The AR-15 is only a 5.56, which is far less powerful than the 7.62 round of a battle rifle or even a hunting rifle. Like I’ve stated, fast rate of fire weapons are banned in the US. The US banned machine guns from civilian purchase under the 1986 FOPA. Obviously, some are grandfathered in, but they are never used in crime and cost tens of thousands of dollars.
So then why would they want to ban it? Do they not trust us with this weapon or is the government threatened by us? Seems like that's the case seeing a populace can not have liberty if the government does not fear them. Look at the ever growing state of domestic intelligence where they store and organize everyone's data. The government fears its people, and with fear comes stability and a check on the government. KEEP IN MIND, despite what the media claims, gun violence since the 80's has decreased 53%, whereas as the gun homicide rate has decreased 47%, whilst private gun ownership has increased. So, there is an inverse correlation. Gun violence and gun homicide rate has lessened to a significant degree and yet there are proposals to ban the AR-15 from law-abiding citizens of which accounts for less than 2% of gun related incidents!!!!
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Liberals will say, "ANY citizen with a gun is NO match and no more than a speed bump to an organized government funded military force."
I'd argue that if it ever came to a civil war or if the government imposed martial law due to a collapsing economy, such a scenario would never come to pass anyways because the citizenry is armed.
If you disarm the citizens and many law makers propose this through a slow implementation of gun restrictions and later a blanket ban, what SAFEGUARDS are there against the government ever becoming oppressive as it has become, increasingly so. What could we do to stop it? Don’t act like this is simply impossible because it has happened many, many times historically.
“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety” -Franklin
Mass shootings kill very few people, it’s just such a high profile and emotionally charged thing people freak out and are scared enough to say “screw liberty I want security.
Why aren’t you not on some vendetta against drunk drivers killing 10,000 people a year or pharmacutical drugs killing astanomically more people. Would you give up your right to drink to save these people? I should note, I'm not against making it harder for those with mental problems to obtain firearms.
Of course a balance between safety and liberty is important but giving up our most important right in exchange for such a minuscule sense of security (not even 100 deaths per year by mass shootings on avg.) is ridiculous. How about the 12 deaths a day in the US alone due to “sharp objects”. 12 murders. Every single day in the US. Every 5 days, more people die due to stabbings then the largest mass shooting of all time in the US. How do we stop that?
None of the other rights we have MEAN ANYTHING if there is NO ABILITY to ENFORCE THEM! Just like a law will mean nothing if there is no ability to enforce it by either gun point or repercussion. How do we secure these right; the checks against government by way of votes, which can be manipulated and an armed citizenry.
**This post was edited on Oct 14th 2017 at 6:59:31pm