- Captain Richards
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- Fabled Member
'Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.'
I support the right of civilians to be able to own any firearm they wish to own provided that they meet a certain criteria to own them. If the people in question do not have a criminal history, have taken the proper safety courses and/or training and can store the weapon (s) in a safe location where criminals cannot steal them, then I see no reason at all why we should prohibit them from owning firearms--in fact, I see no reason why we should prohibit them from owning ANY type of firearm provided they meet the criteria. Really, why would you allow a person with a clean criminal record and who has endured the proper training to own one type of firearm but to not own another type? If they were going to do damage then they would have done it anyway with whatever type of firearm they owned.
Likewise--to clear up a red herring--there is no such thing as an "assault weapon"--that's just a derogatory term invented by anti-gun folks. Mechanically, an "assault weapon" is just a 'select-fire' rifle that fires rifle cartridges--oftentimes no different than a semi-automatic hunting rifle. The only difference lies in their cosmetic appearance.
Secondly, owning firearms is beneficial for several reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that it gives us citizens a way of defending ourselves, our loved ones and our property from violent criminals. A firearm is oftentimes the great "equalizer" that gives us a chance against a hardened, tough criminal. Learning a martial art may not be affective if you are a small person, obese, old or have some health concern. Plus, it takes years of practice to master a martial art. A taser admittedly may work to stop one criminal, but it falls short. It is a single-person weapon. What if there are more than one perpetrators involved? Your taser will only take down one of them before you have to recoil it and prepare it for another shot, and by that time, you could already have been harmed, killed or constrained by the other perpetrators, whereas with a firearm you could have shot them in quick succession.
Likewise, while the police force may work in some cases to protect us from criminals, they may not work in all cases. It still takes at the very least 1 minute for them to arrive on scene. And in that 1 minute, the person could have already attacked you. Or, what if you do not own a cellphone? Or you do not get reception? Or, even worse, what if you live in a rural area where it would take at the very least like half an hour for the police to arrive on scene? Likewise, we would also save money if the majority of the mature civilian population owned a firearm because we would not have to spend as much money funding such a large police force.
Firearms are also important for our lifestyle in many cases. Farmers depend on firearms to get rid of pests and to protect their livestock from predators. Some people in isolated areas hunt their meat and thus rely on firearms to keep food on the table (literally) and some professional hunters rely on firearms to get paid. Ever watch the show Swamp People? Those people rely on the alligators that they themselves hunt with their firearms to make a living. Likewise, firearms are also a fun source of recreation for many people.
Finally, having a civilian population that owns firearms is also good because it will save the nation money by not having to spend as much money to fund a National Arm and/or Military, since any possible enemies who would try invading or occupying US soil via military force would have a VERY hard time due to the constant civilian uprisings and armed revolts. While an armed civilian population may not be able to truly engage a trained military force in conventional combat, they CAN engage them via guerilla warfare and make occupation of an area EXTREMELY difficult. That alone will either a) prevent a nation from trying to invade since they will not want to go through the trouble, or b) if they do decide to invade anyway, it would spread out their invading force too thin and keep them busy and exhausted, making them more vulnerable for a primary military defense force to come in and finish them off via conventional fighting. Anyone who denies the power of an armed civilian population is obviously unfamiliar with the Revolutionary War in which an army of untrained, underequipped misfits took on the most powerful conventional army in the world at the time, or in Vietnam when a group of rice peasants with rifles were able to take on the most powerful military in the world and win, or in modern times, even the Middle East right now, where terrorists with outdated AK rifles are still exhausting the United States military.
I believe that outlawing guns will only cause more damage than good, and is illogical. First and foremost, why should mature and responsible citizens have to suffer just because a few criminals and/or idiots who misuse firearms? That's like outlawing alcohol because stupid people can become impaired and potentially harm another person, or outlawing cars because some people may run other people over or even outlawing pencils, pens and other writing devices because mobsters use them to fill out checks for assassinations and because politicians use them to sign declarations of war. The whole "But guns are solely designed to destroy whatever they are fired at," argument is faulty in my mind, because destroying something is not always necessarily bad. What is wrong with destroying a violent offender trying to harm you, or destroying a predator trying to eat your livestock or destroying a paper/clay target at the shooting range? It all depends upon the owner. Cars are made with the sole purpose of moving the driver to another location--which would also include such locations that would lead to people getting ran over and dying. Should we outlaw them as well? No, it all depends on the driver. And firearms are no different.
Instead of outlawing something entirely, we should just work to prevent firearms from falling into the hands of criminals and/or idiots who would misuse them. In fact, outlawing something entirely has never worked well in the past. Just look at the war on drugs--that has not stopped drugs from soaring into impoverished neighborhoods or stopped addicts from getting their drugs. Look at the Prohibition, that did not stop people from consuming alcohol--it only gave violent criminals a fertile market to sell the illegal product and gain more power. So why should firearms be any different? Outlawing firearms will only deprive good law-abiding citizens from possessing a way to defend themselves and criminals--who've never followed laws in the past--will probably not obey this law either, and just get them from the underground black market--just how people illegally got alcohol from the black market during Prohibition. I think a better approach is to just regulate who can and cannot purchase firearms, that way proper citizens will be able to own them and we will be able to prosecute bad citizens who attain them illegally and/or misuse them.
Debate/Discuss