Laws should focus on consequences & responsibility, not pre-emption.
If some thing or behavior is reasonably understood to be an imminent threat of grave harm, regulation thereof is reasonable.
If way more than 99% of the time it isn't a problem, regulation is unreasonable.
To your examples:
- Waiting periods are useless in nearly all cases, as practically all the time there is nothing to avert, and other equivalent options are usually available if there is. I know one excellent store which had to close because waiting periods were intolerable to customers (people would drive far to shop, but having to come back days later to complete the purchase was just too obnoxious).
- Most criminals get their guns illegally. That getting them is illegal doesn't stop them (that's...um...why they're criminals). Most gun control laws just annoy the law-abiding, doing nothing to stop criminials who simply ignore them & buy elsewhere.
- A lot of "felonies" do not warrant loss of rights. Simple possession (as in: stuck in a box in the back of a closet) of an $18 30-round M16 magazine (very common & legal in most of the USA) is a felony in NY. Should Constitutional rights be lost thanks to simply owning a small metal box with a spring?
Upshot is: if we go thru the laws many people think we should have, analysis will reveal that they do little good in preventing crime & harm, and do much to annoy the law-abiding or set them up for victimhood. Current gun laws ARE too restrictive, severely misguided, doing more harm than good. Of the 20,000 on the books, only maybe a dozen or so should remain. And yes, I have comprehensively studied the relevant federal and NY laws, and examined those of other states. I'd be happy to send you a copy of the complete gun laws of the entire country (have an extra copy) - read all several hundred tiny-print large-format pages in detail, and then tell me with a straight face that "of course we need all this" (hint: you won't).
Much that many people think intolerable punishable behavior is at worst harmless and often extremely helpful. What the ignorant consider terrifying is often what the knowledgable consider reasonable and normal - and wish the ignorant would stop being so annoying about.
What we DO need is appropriate consequences for irresponsible behavior.
Thing is, it's so much easier to enforce laws on the reasonable & compliant than it is on the dangerously irresponsible.
All very good, solid, intellectually stimulating responses I've gotten (for the most part). I'm much more pragmatic than many I've heard from. I suppose you all will pick apart my following questions with all kinds of studies and facts, but here goes:
1) We don't live in a world (like they did in colonial days) where we hunted our food daily in order to feed our families, and were threatened by our European govts trying to control us and keep us captive by their totalitarian control.
2) As a nation, we are impulsive, and depressed, and arrogant, and violent, and lack all manner of self-discipline. Our first course of action when maligned in any way internally or externally is to destroy, even ourselves, and in the taking, bring as many people along with us as possible.
3) There are huge populations of our nation that, while their lack of felony records may not exlude them from gun ownership, but their reckless lifestyles, particularly regarding their offspring, make firearms needlessly available to children, who lack the maturity to LEAVE IT ALONE, thus causing countless "accidental" gun deaths. These statistics would skyrocket, should limits be lifted. Children would die -- killing each other -- because of unfettered access to guns. (I'm sure you'll tell me how low these incidents actually are -- proposterous).
4) The influence of media on the American psyche is astronomical, and unfathonable to the Founding Fathers who framed our Constitution. Anger, violence, retribution reigns. And you all actually think that lifting laws on gun ownership will have a positive effect on our society?
Honestly, I don't know that most of us are willing to take that chance. You can tweak the numbers and the stats all you want, but I don't believe for one minute that lifting gun laws in NY and DC would decrease crime. It's BECAUSE of the criminal mind which will do as it pleases that we MUST maintain order in a free society, and not believe that arming every citizen somehow makes us more human or more American.
Freedom as a Christian, as a human, or as an American, is in defined by whether we have the right to own a gun. I don't buy it. And I don't think the Framers would disagree with me either, if they lived in the world we have now.
I understand what you all are trying to say about the slippery slope of personal freedoms, and the gun laws being on an example of how the big bad govt takes our freedoms away. Maybe I don't trust human beings as much as you all do. Maybe I don't think it's logical to say that whether guns are lethal or not isn't the point -- it's whether we have a right to own them or not. A gun is not a knife, or a bat, or an ax, or anything else.
I have been a victim of a violent crime, and so have many people close to me. Even still, I don't believe that a gun in my hand would have changed the outcome of my life or of the lives of my friends / family in any way, even though some of them have had their lives destroyed by guns killing loved ones.
Sorry, but it's just my opinion...and it doesn't make me less of a conservative or a Republican, or a Christian.
Thanks for all the sharing..