Iolaus wrote:I mean think about it - if our government makes laws that you can't own a gun, in what way are we a free people?
Anna, that is a purely rhetorical question, and not a very effective one. The government has made laws about all sorts of things we can't do. I can't throw a plastic soda bottle away in my trash because we have recycling where I live. If I still smoked, I could not light up a cigarette in most public places around me.
The weakness is in the implementation. Ostensibly, all laws are passed with the best interest of the largest proportion of the populace as a goal. This is why legislatures act so slowly. The idea is always more freedom, even though the implementation often results in the curtailment of somebody's freedom. We aren't free to construct nuclear bombs, either. That restriction doesn't make me feel put upon.
We are not even free to wear disguises in public. It was in the news recently of a guy in FLA who was arrested because he went around to bars dressed up as Batman. My guess is he thought some dopey broads would go for it because it's not something you see every day. You do understand the rationale behind the no-disguises laws? In what way are we a free people if we cannot dress the way we like? In what way are we a free people if we have to dress at all, for that matter?
People aren't free to grow marijuana for their own consumption. There are old men in Texas prisons who were put there when they were just kids in the 1960's for getting caught with a couple of joints. Do you really think the right to own a gun makes us a free people? Or really any freer than we would be if ordinary citizens could not get guns?
Implementation. The guns are already out there. The genie is out of the bottle. Legislation probably could not fix anything now, not without the bloodshed that the legislation would be passed to prevent in the first place.
I trust Hodges with a gun. He sounds like a responsible owner. In Philadelphia, where we both live, the other day a man got out of his car and
shot another man who was taking his eight-year-old daughter home. It was simple road rage. I don't trust guys like him with guns. Even if the victim had owned a gun, it would not have saved him from this senseless act.
So to set matters straight, I do not advocate removing weapons from private ownership, mostly because I do not see how such a thing could possibly be
implemented in anything even approaching a safe manner. But there is no reason why we cannot make guns - especially handguns - harder to get. And require them to be more traceable, like with embedded microchips. Every state mandates that you pass a written and physical test before you can be licensed to drive a car. And a car's primary use is not supposed to be killing or injuring. Yet with the sale of devices whose
sole purpose is killing or injuring, no test is required.
Every year, weapons manufacturers produce more and more firearms. Where are they all going? They must end up somewhere. My guess is that the number of arms in the US is growing faster than the population, which means more and more people are armed.
We are already not a free people, Anna.