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| [Ben]: | Some common sense | Discuss This [1 comment so far] View Comments | Common sense gun laws
You hear: Gun laws that would seem to make sense to a well-informed person.
They mean: Anything we can get away with banning, restricting or making more expensive.
There is very little in the way of consensus on what would make up common-sense gun laws, and this phrasing is a way to bully people into accepting laws more restrictive than they would ordinarily agree with. After all, you wouldn't disagree with something that was common-sense, would you?
Assault rifles or Assault weapons
You hear: Machine guns.
They mean: Almost all common firearms.
There is a technical meaning for assault rifles that doesn't apply, but when a politician or reporter uses the term they are just trying to make some of the most popular firearms in use around the country out to be evil. Remember also that most police routinely carry guns that meet the ever-expanding criteria of assault weapon. Does that mean that police are preparing for war or to slaughter innocent people? Of course not! In fact, police responded to the Connecticut shooting carrying the same kind of rifle that the shooter used (except some of the cops had silencers and machine guns too). When something can be used for either good or evil, passing laws to restrict it will serve only to take it away from the people who will use it for good.
Gun violence legislation
You hear: Laws that will help stop gun violence.
They mean: More gun control, baby.
Ironically, the legislation proposed as "gun violence legislation" only affects people who care about following laws. Those who disobey the law (say, are getting ready to commit murder) are more than happy to break the law to obtain their guns. For instance they might steal guns from cops. Or as some wag once pointed out, gun smugglers could simply disguise their product as routine drug shipments and bring them over the border that way.
High capacity bullet clips
You hear: Guns that never out of ammunition just like in the action movies.
They mean: We want guns to hold as little ammunition as possible.
Previous legislation in place from 1994 to 2004 limited magazines to 10 rounds. Now, New York has enacted a state law to further limit it to 7 rounds. The trend is to keep limiting the number of rounds as though that will prevent criminals from doing bad things with guns, or limit the damage someone can do with them. Criminals have the advantage of starting fights on their terms, and can figure out ways to give themselves the edge they need. And if it means spending a few buck to obtain an illegal magazine, why would they hesitate?
As a humorous aside, New York forgot to add an exemption for police officers who routinely carry handguns and rifles with magazines that hold between 13 and 30 rounds. New York is working to fix that because "You can't give more ammo to the criminals," ... unless you're talking about criminals facing people who are not law-enforcement, apparently. Again, if police can and do use these things for good, so can I.
If it prevents just one tragedy, we should do it
You hear: If you oppose me, you support tragedies.
They mean: We can't let a tragedy go to waste. We have to milk this as much as we can for as long as we can.
No one really means this. Consider these facts from the CDC
Children ages 1 to 4 have the highest drowning rates. In 2009, among children 1 to 4 years old who died from an unintentional injury, more than 30% died from drowning.
Among children ages 1 to 4, most drownings occur in home swimming pools.
Drowning is responsible for more deaths among children 1-4 than any other cause except congenital anomalies (birth defects).
Among those 1-14, fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death behind motor vehicle crashes. |
According to the CDC, in 2007 (the last year available) there were 781 drowning deaths of kids between 0 and 14. That same year there were 398 firearms-related deaths in the same age range. If you banned pools you would save hundreds of children's lives every year - many more than can be saved by anti-gun legislation, but no one is proposing a federal law to do so. Why is that? Are politicians saying that the death of a child by drowning is less tragic than the death of a child by firearm? Or is it really that they already have an agenda and they are using a terrible event to bolster support for seizing more control?
As Tam said:
| You'd think that before they waved the bloody shirt, they'd have the decency to take it off the dead kid first. |
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| 2013-01-18
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Some common sense |
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