Posted on 01/02/2013 10:28:13 AM PST by neverdem
In the wake of the Newtown massacre, a call has gone up for a conversation about our gun laws. To that end, here are questions for advocates of gun control who are pushing for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, among other new restrictions, to address school shootings.
What’s the functional difference between an assault weapon and a semiautomatic rifle? You do understand that the answer is “nothing”? An assault weapon is not an automatic weapon. It is semiautomatic like most guns now sold in the United States, i.e., it fires every time the trigger is pulled. What sets it apart is its scary-looking features.
What’s more powerful, the Bushmaster .223 used by Adam Lanza in his slaughter or the average deer-hunting rifle? If the answer is the average deer-hunting rifle — indeed, many states ban the Bushmaster .223 for deer hunting because it is too weak — will you attempt to ban them, too?
What gun law would have stopped Newtown? Please be specific. Adam Lanza’s mother didn’t have a criminal record. Neither did he. If the Bushmaster .223 had been banned, he could have done the same with a semiautomatic rifle. If all semiautomatic rifles were banned — something that would never pass Congress — he could have done the same with a semiautomatic handgun. If high-capacity magazines had been banned, he could have reloaded with smaller magazines.
How many guns are in the United States? The answer is 280 million. In a country with that many guns, how is gun control possibly going to succeed? If you ban a small subset of new guns for sale, what are you going to do about the rest? Let’s say you succeed beyond anything that is remotely possible. Let’s say you somehow stop the new sale of guns altogether and somehow decommission half of existing guns. What are you going to do with the other 140 million guns?
Does the Virginia Tech massacre affect your view of the efficacy of an assault-weapons ban? In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho perpetrated the deadliest shooting in the country’s history. He killed 32 people using two semiautomatic handguns.
Why has violent crime declined in the United States during the past 20 years even as gun ownership has ticked up? According to Gallup, nearly half of adults have a gun on their property, the highest number since 1993. Why has crime declined even as gun-control laws have been liberalized?
The assault-weapons ban passed in 1994 and was in effect for ten years. The paradigmatic school shooting took place at Columbine High School in 1999. Why didn’t the assault-weapons ban prevent it?
There have been hundreds of murders with guns this year in Chicago, where gun laws are restrictive. What new gun laws does the city need to stop the tide of mayhem? There have been hundreds more in New York City, where the mayor is the foremost anti-gun scold in the country. What new gun laws does New York need?
Why aren’t violent crimes routinely committed at gun ranges teeming with people who own multiple weapons, some of them quite dangerous-looking, and who enjoy shooting them?
Why do gun-free-school laws never succeed in stopping lunatics bent on murder from taking guns to schools?
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre proposed posting armed police officers at schools in his widely derided press conference last week. Would you feel at least a little bit better if an armed officer were guarding your child’s school? Please be honest.
In places where gun laws are the tightest, why do so many people own guns anyway? In your zeal against guns, do you favor stop-and-frisk policies to catch people carrying illegal guns in major urban areas?
In your view, to make a public policy worth pursuing, should it have a discernible connection to its stated goal? Or is it enough that the policy be well-intentioned and opposed by the NRA? Actually, there’s no need to answer that. It’s obvious enough already.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. © 2012 King Features Syndicate
Correction: What’s the functional difference between a so called "assault weapon" and a semiautomatic rifle?
Don't let your opponents frame the debate.
If the policy does not work, then the government has an excuse to take on more power.
The End.
intentions are all that matter.
They're just following the lead of the Drug Warriors.
Doesn’t look good for IL
"Controllers."
Think about it a minute.
Because the stated intended results are not the true results intended.
“If a policy doesn’t produce the intended results, why pursue it?”
The intent is to disarm you so you can be much more easily B-slapped around. Submit to tyranny. They’ve already seen you’ll allow TSA to fondle your package without warrant or probable cause. When you’re disarmed, their fun will really begin.
As with ALL things liberal......because it feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels good.
Which of these cartridges are more deadly?
.222 Remington
.222 Remington Special
.223 Remington
5.56 MM Remington
.222 Remington Magnum.
Liberals act on EMOTION everytime. Facts have nothing to do with it,
This isn’t about the definition of an Assault Rifle, high capacity magazines, how to stop senseless massacres by madmen, nor is it about Gun Show Loopholes that don’t exist except in the minds of these zealots...these are private sales just like any other private unregulated sale all over the country between two individuals.
This is about FEELINGS that force laws that are intended to CONTROL the will of a free people - individuals - to put down an oppressive government should that be necessary.
They are controllers who want to dictate what you eat, wear, drive, use and (above all) THINK! It is their power and their raison d’etre. Without it, they are just empty-souled automatons that can’t scare up a hint of logic or reason between them.
They want us unarmed so they can stay in power. So we can’t oust them by force when their cheating has subverted the normal voting due-process that has vanished from this country.
That is why we are even discussing these meaningless topics. They are just drawing us into their word trap. If any human condition deserved an immovable stand immutable to none, this one does.
“In your view, to make a public policy worth pursuing, should it have a discernible connection to its stated goal?”
But the stated goal is not the real one, even though it’s for the children.
You are assuming their intended results are the reduction of violence. It’s not.
That is the only correct answer.
But there are people who still refuse to see that.
Because, at its core, Gun Control is not about about controlling crime. It is about controlling people.
Exactly! We've gone from a society that came to its conclusions by using logic, reason and historical examples into one who always emotes its way through any argument.
at least they’ll get a 5th place ,runner-up, 6 foot tall trophy for ‘most improved’ leftard idea.
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