Thanks for your service Jim. For a number of reasons I wont dig into your background, but suffice it to say however, that in my opinion, mere familiarity with, or ownership of, firearms doesnt grant you the same perspective that street level police work in a large city does. But I digress…
Ah, so no scenario exists where a civilian will “need” an assault rifle, yet “we need one just because”. Thats great. Its not I who am failing to understand the purpose of Jon’s article, but you who are failing to understand the purpose of mine. Go back and re-read the dui analogy Jim. Jon wants a fun gun thats adaptable. Jon wants to hunt deer in the morning, birds at night and then pace around his house waiting for that home invasion robbery. The point you’re missing is this… “are we better served as a society, if we remove a mechanism that is killing our own unarmed citizens, en masse.” Strangely enough, by doing so, we dont remove Jon’s ability to hunt birds or deer or protect his home. Will he have to buy more than one gun? Yes. Will the cost of those additional guns be relatively equal to what he spends on all of the accessories to modify his AR to the platforms you describe? Most likely. Is the individual burden to Jon so great that we as a society, who overall will benefit from it, just cannot justify it? I think not. You’re right to point out that yes, I have offered my opinion.
Maybe you should re-read the part about the fact that I do not believe a ban on any weapon will end murder. I never proposed the idea that an assault weapons ban will end mass shootings. All Im saying is lets remove one mechanism, and in doing so we might a)improve the odds of survival of a mass shooting-again re-read the article written by Heather Sher… b)reduce the overall casualty numbers.
You’re right Jim, I dont propose taking away the ability of citizens to hunt. But why cant a bird hunter shoot a shotgun with 5 rounds? When will a big game hunter need more than 5 rounds? Please dont reply with “because they want to”. Go back to my DUI analogy. And round and round and round we go. I have no problem at all with modifying what we allow as firearms, if it legitimately serves the public interest, and as Im sure you will point out, that yes, this is solely my opinion. But it is based on street level crime investigation experience Jim, one which I can venture to guess does not exist within an agency who’s task it is to protect the President and investigate currency crimes. (I am not attacking you personally Jim, I am saying the roles and respective experiences are different)
Ok Jim, how about this? Lets both cite some statistics that support our respective views and have an internet fight. I have some fun little graphs as well. Lets argue the Heller decision for a while, or the clarification that came from the evaluation of that case found in Aguilar. (If you’re familiar with that one.)
OR- how about you propose a substantive solution that has some basis in fact, and some chance of actually working?
