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The author, like most people who oppose common sense regulations like the banning of assault rifles, sees the world in simplistic black and white. There are bad

The author, like most people who oppose common sense regulations like the banning of assault rifles, sees the world in simplistic black and white. There are bad guys who want to harm people, and who scoff at laws. And there are good guys, who follow laws, are patriots, and just want to protect their family and community. Of course the world is a lot more complicated than that. Yesterday's good guy is tomorrow's school shooter. Domestic violence, alcohol, mental health disorders, theft, and accidents are all cracks in this simplistic worldview. No matter how you cut it, a world where all the good guys have assault rifles with high capacity magazines is a world where the effects of the inevitable -- the breakdown of social order -- are magnified. A shooting spree instead of a bar fight. A family murder-suicide instead of a black eye and a CPS visit. 20 school children dead instead of 10. This is what NRA supporters don't seem to understand about the world. They're stuck in a comic book good-vs-evil story and they're the hero.

jchb 9y ago
Agree with what you say, but better be careful with the term "assault rifle", as the people on the other side of this issue will (correctly) point out that the military definition of an assault rifle includes that it has a fully automatic mode - and such weapons are effectively already banned in the USA. Also, another good one (that that you didn't mention), the weapon name prefix "AR" does not stand for "Assault Rifle". What to say instead? Perhaps that semi-automatic weapons, and magazines over a certain size, should be banned.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
> Yesterday's good guy is tomorrow's school shooter. Sorry, but that's patent nonsense. Somewhere north of 3 million AR-15 rifles have been sold. The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) committed at schools averages about one per year. http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/ http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-o... You should be embarrassed to even make that claim.
- solipsism 9y ago
  You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not claiming most, average, or even many assault rifle owners do anything inappropriate with it. I agree that would be nonsense. School shootings are rare. Cop murders are rare. No one thinks anyone with a rifle is likely to do these things. The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. This is not rocket science. If it was legal to own RPGs, some people would. And the more people did, the more crazy RPG-related shit would happen. And when we're grieving over a 50 death incident, we'll never be able to prove (to a degree that would convince a member of the National RPG Association) that it would have been 15 if RPGs had been illegal.
  - adamrezich 9y ago
    >The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. We can presumably agree that there's more legal civilian-owned firearms in the US than ever before, yet the national homicide rate has steadily decreased since the 90s https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago Bump stocks were first sold in 2010, yet the homicide rate has still slowly declined since then. How does any of this match up with your belief that more firearms owned by civilians, higher capacity magazines available for civilian use, and even the invention and sale of lesser-known (until recently) novelty firearm accessories such as bump stocks lead to increased violent firearm crime?
    - solipsism 9y ago
      Again with the simplistic views. To claim that the mere quantity of guns (or anything else) alone directly predicts gun deaths (or anything else) would be ridiculous. There are many theories for the reduction in homicide rate. Longer (and mandatory) prison terms, stricter gun laws, more police, etc. Your argument is equivalent to the guy holding a snowball and arguing that global warming obviously can't be real.
CompanionCuuube 9y ago
You're right. There is too much simplification going on, where people think they're the hero saving others when the truth is not so clear cut as they would like to believe it is.

jchb 9y ago

Agree with what you say, but better be careful with the term "assault rifle", as the people on the other side of this issue will (correctly) point out that the military definition of an assault rifle includes that it has a fully automatic mode - and such weapons are effectively already banned in the USA. Also, another good one (that that you didn't mention), the weapon name prefix "AR" does not stand for "Assault Rifle". What to say instead? Perhaps that semi-automatic weapons, and magazines over a certain size, should be banned.

Turing_Machine 9y ago

> Yesterday's good guy is tomorrow's school shooter. Sorry, but that's patent nonsense. Somewhere north of 3 million AR-15 rifles have been sold. The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) committed at schools averages about one per year. http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/ http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-o... You should be embarrassed to even make that claim.

solipsism 9y ago
You seem to have misunderstood. I'm not claiming most, average, or even many assault rifle owners do anything inappropriate with it. I agree that would be nonsense. School shootings are rare. Cop murders are rare. No one thinks anyone with a rifle is likely to do these things. The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. This is not rocket science. If it was legal to own RPGs, some people would. And the more people did, the more crazy RPG-related shit would happen. And when we're grieving over a 50 death incident, we'll never be able to prove (to a degree that would convince a member of the National RPG Association) that it would have been 15 if RPGs had been illegal.
- adamrezich 9y ago
  >The point, instead, is that in a world full of assault rifles and high capacity magazines and bump stocks, more of these types of things will happen and they will be worse when they do. We can presumably agree that there's more legal civilian-owned firearms in the US than ever before, yet the national homicide rate has steadily decreased since the 90s https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-30/chicago Bump stocks were first sold in 2010, yet the homicide rate has still slowly declined since then. How does any of this match up with your belief that more firearms owned by civilians, higher capacity magazines available for civilian use, and even the invention and sale of lesser-known (until recently) novelty firearm accessories such as bump stocks lead to increased violent firearm crime?
  - solipsism 9y ago
    Again with the simplistic views. To claim that the mere quantity of guns (or anything else) alone directly predicts gun deaths (or anything else) would be ridiculous. There are many theories for the reduction in homicide rate. Longer (and mandatory) prison terms, stricter gun laws, more police, etc. Your argument is equivalent to the guy holding a snowball and arguing that global warming obviously can't be real.

CompanionCuuube 9y ago

You're right. There is too much simplification going on, where people think they're the hero saving others when the truth is not so clear cut as they would like to believe it is.