Target shooting and trap, skeet, et al are some of the most popular sports in this country today. As one who spends many a sunny Summer Sunday plinking at the range or blasting a couple boxes of clay pigeons, I enjoy the variety of different firearms and their capabilities that are available.
So it irks me when I read from some gun grabbing liberals that they support hunting or target shooting or even personal defense but that I have no right to certain weapons such as what they decide are “assault weapons.” They say that “nobody needs them.”
Any weapon is an “assault weapon” if used criminally. Fortunately, there are some 90 million gun owners in this country who never use their guns criminally, or stupidly, or recklessly. That a few idiots do is not a compelling reason to prohibit the other 90 million from owning them any more than the fact that a few reckless drivers ignoring traffic laws is a reason to ban sports cars.
Or, as Michael B. Hanson puts it:
Firearms just happen to be a technological advancement that makes some crime more easily and efficiently perpetrated. The same could be said of modern computers, digital cameras and video phones. Just because computers, the Internet, digital cameras and video recording telephones are easily used for the sexual exploitation of men, women and children, financial scams, identity theft and counterfeiting doesn’t mean that having them for the purpose of entertainment is a “lame excuse” for possessing them.
There are a lot of things in this country that can and are misused. What’s the total cost to society of alcoholic beverages? Lost days at work, crime and rape committed under the influence? Spousal abuse? DUI highway killings? Medical problems (and attendant costs to society) with prolonged misuse? A better case could be made for a ban on alcohol. Been there, tried that. Didn’t work.
Neither will a ban on some or all firearms. Instead, just as driving under the influence has been reduced — somewhat! — by stricter enforcement by law enforcement and harsher sentences, so too, crime can be reduced by putting thugs who use guns criminally into prison for a very long time. See, what liberals don’t get is that laws and legislation should punish the criminal, not the law abiding.
3 Responses to “Guns as Entertainment”
on 31 Mar 2008 at 9:08 am # Bruce
“Punish the criminal”???
Weirdo.
on 31 Mar 2008 at 3:02 pm # Nimrod45
“Assault” is a behaviour, not an inanimate object…
on 31 Mar 2008 at 3:53 pm # straightarrow
More fatal traffic accidents are instances with no alcohol involvement at all. Therefore driving sober should carry the harshest of penalties, since sober drivers cause a 150% rate of fatalities as do drivers under the influence.
Oh, and the 150% number is accurate. If adjusted for alcohol involved accidents where no drivers were drinking, or where the nondrinking driver was at fault the percentage is even higher. Check the NTSB figures. (They do not make those two distinctions i mentioned, however it is impossible for there not to be some impact, when one considers that the reporting requirements only mean that someone in the accident had a drink sometime recently, not necessarily a driver. It’s a cheat for an agenda)
I did not make up the figure above. Punishing sober drivers makes much more sense than punishing lawful gunowners who have almost no record of untoward occurrence.