Right now we have to be smart about this. Fighting for felons and mentally ill people to own guns to me looks awful, regardless of the principals behind it and will be used to make a mockery of us.
Just my .02
Oh, I agree. We have to stem the flood right now. Mentally ill should be 100% denied, and if they are certifiable, they need to have the guns plucked right out of their hands. To a person, the last 5 mass shootings have been crazies.
"The United Kingdom has a total recorded crime rate per capita of approximately 85 per 1000 people; the United States of America records approximately 80"
"A 2006 statistical analysis found no measurable effect detectable from the 1997 firearms legislation."
"In the year Apr 2010 to Mar 2011 there were 11,227 recorded offences involving firearms, broken down as follows.
By weapon type:
Long-barrelled shotgun = 406
Sawn-off shotgun = 202
Handgun = 3,105
Rifle = 74
Imitation firearm = 1,610
Unidentified firearm = 957
Other firearm = 670
Air weapons = 4,203
"According to Nationmaster, the UK has the third highest number of persons per crime, on the planet, at 26.4% of their population."
"According to Mail Online News, gun crime has skyrocketed in the last decade despite a weapons ban in effect"
As you can see a ban is extremely effective....[/sc]
Source wiki
I'll stand up for the felons, or if we're talking people who have served their sentences ex-felons:
For if in serving their sentence they are not fully restored to the body politic (voting, arms, all things a law abiding citizen may do) then we have created a secondary class of citizen -- moreover, it is infinitely worse, because any such rights are dependent upon the government, which one must always consider as being willing and able to abuse its power.
Moreover, if one is never able to pay for one's "debt to society" then one can never assume that the punishment for any 'infraction' will EVER be paid. The logical endpoint of such policies: your one parking ticket, years ago, may still be used to deny you help or exercise of 'rights'/privileges... IOW to control you.
Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.-- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"