Banning assault rifles: the issue on its merits

Pat Buchanan, gun crackpot?

Imagine there was no 2^nd Amendment or any state equivalent, and that we in America were discussing gun control with a view toward cutting the violence on city streets and diminishing the threat of mass shootings.

Imagine that fully automatic firearms are already banned everywhere in the US and the issue before the states, local governments, and the general government is in each case a proposal to ban ordinary civilian ownership, possession, or use of assault rifles, semi-automatic versions of fully-automatic weapons designed expressly for military use in combat situations.

Rifles and shotguns designed for hunting, sports shooting, or target shooting are not in question, though there are proposals to limit magazines for them and for pistols to no more than 10 rounds.

On the one side stand the liberals backed by people concerned that such weapons have proved far too effective as tools of mass murder to be left in private hands.

On the other are the defenders of gun enthusiasts who wish to continue able to purchase, keep, and even in some cases carry the greatest possible variety of firearms, at will, including assault rifles.

The reason for banning such weapons is evident and strong.

What are the reasons for leaving them in the hands of the general public?

Here are some of the arguments we have seen.

Argument 1: There is a natural, moral, and/or God-given right to self-defense and to defend one’s family and innocents in danger, and this entails the further right to do so, if not with whatever weapon one prefers, then anyway with an assault rifle.

There are no such things as natural, moral, or God-given rights.

But, even if there were, why should we believe anything as absurd and incredible on its face as that the right to self-defense, if there is one, is a right to defend oneself with whatever weapon one prefers?

Suitcase nukes at 50 paces?

Radiological bombs?

Weaponized anthrax?

Ah, the smell of mustard gas in the morning!

And why believe even the more limited but equally baseless claim, also incredible on its face, that the right to self-defense is or entails a right to defend oneself with an assault rifle?

There is indeed a legal right to self-defense, much hedged with qualifications varying from one jurisdiction to the next.

Nowhere does – and certainly nowhere must – such a right include a right to use an assault rifle, specifically, for this purpose, that I know of.

Argument 2: People who cannot afford many guns may buy a single rifle for multiple purposes including any or all of self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and general sport shooting. Banning assault rifles limits their choice for such a single, general purpose rifle.

An assault rifle is a very poor choice for these purposes. It is a good choice only for combat. People seeking a general purpose rifle will do better with something else. Almost anything else.

Argument 3: Government is a dangerous thing, and it is prudent for us to leave those among us who want to do it free to own and train with military style weapons in case some day our government becomes tyrannical, at which time they will, or at any rate might, voluntarily, of their own accord, and on their own judgment rise up to save us in a spontaneous war of liberation.

Ah. The Red Dawn argument.

But this argument is so stupid and so insane that anyone who makes it proves thereby that he is to be trusted with firearms far less than the general run of ordinary civilians.

These weapons are far too dangerous for us to allow them to be widely owned by the general run of civilians solely as a collector’s enthusiasm or a hobby.

They ought to be banned with little or no grandfathering of rifles currently owned.

As for suitcase nukes, radiological bombs, mustard gas, and weaponized anthrax, did you really feel you had to ask?

PS.

If you knew your state legislature was about to pass a law banning ownership of snow-mobiles and was definitely not going to grandfather them would you run right out and pay two or three times the usual price to buy one, quick, so the ban could damage you personally as much as possible?

If you do that, are we to suppose your plan must be to flee into the woods and hide out there until tyranny is overthrown by a people roused at last by this outrage?

Hmm.

Today's Republicans are an alliance of religious nitwits and a variety of other, more secular crackpots in service to a social harmful agenda whose main purpose is to further enrich and empower the rich.

Too bad it's not the main purpose of the Democrats to block the main purpose of the Republicans.