Posted on 12/22/2012 4:15:50 AM PST by Kaslin
There are now calls from the Left for gun control legislation in response to Adam Lanza's unconscionable mass killing of innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary. However, very few people seem to be asking the most basic question of all before getting started: What gun control legislation could have stopped Adam Lanza?
The answer is "none."
Let's consider a few alternatives:
1) The school was already a "gun free zone;" so obviously that wasn't effective. Of course, the sort of people who would respect a "gun free zone" in the first place are the very ones you wouldn't have to worry about carrying a gun; so it's an almost useless designation.
2) What about closing the supposed "gun show loophole?" Well, since Lanza killed his own mother and used her legally acquired guns for his rampage, making it harder for googly-eyed loners to acquire weapons wouldn't have changed a thing.
3) Some people are calling for a ban on automatic weapons. Setting aside the fact that the regulation of fully automatic weapons is already tighter than Spandex, Adam Lanza didn't use a fully automatic weapon.
4) Then there are calls for the "Assault Weapons Ban" to be reinstated. One problem: the semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 rifle that Lanza used wasn't covered by the bill. So, his mother could have bought that exact same gun with a sheriff looking over her shoulder while the ban was in place.
5) We could, of course, pass a newly updated "Assault Weapons Ban" that covers the semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 rifle. Then, gun manufacturers would try to create weapons that can get around the ban. They would probably be successful. Even if they weren't, it's not as if Lanza was battling Marines. When you're a coward who's attacking unarmed children, any gun will work.
6) We could also ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, but given the 3-5 second reload time, that would have been a minor inconvenience to Adam Lanza at worst. After all, it's not as if a group of small children were going to be able to scamper away or gang up on him during a four second window.
So, what now? Well, let's step into the realm of fantasy and assume that there's no such thing as a 2nd Amendment that provides the public with a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms." that is every bit as important as the right to free speech and freedom of religion. Let's also pretend that the American public would go along with the following laws and attempts to implement them wouldn't lead to wide scale violence and unrest.
7) Congress could ban the manufacture and sale of bullets and magazines. Given the massive number of bullets and magazines already owned by the public and readily available instructions for making them, this wouldn't stop any determined killer like Adam Lanza. On the other hand, it would lead to a massive black market with tens of millions of previously law abiding Americans buying bullets by the bucketful from back rooms across the country.
8) Congress could also ban the manufacture and sale of guns. Again, that would lead to the creation of a massive black market, but it would also leave roughly 300 million guns in the hands of the American people. In other words, if Adam Lanza had decided to wait until AFTER that law was passed to go on his killing spree, it would have been the same sad story.
9) Then, there's the most extreme step of all: Congress could ban the ownership of guns. One problem: In the vast majority of cases, the government has no record of who owns guns and who doesn't. In most places, those records are kept at the gun store level and are not updated. If the gun is lost, stolen, given away or sold by the individual, there is no record of it. This is a feature, not a bug, and it's designed to prevent exactly the sort of confiscation we're discussing here. So, even if all guns were made illegal, it would be very difficult to enforce, most people wouldn't turn their weapons in and there would probably be two hundred million guns left in the hands of the American public. Would a man like Adam Lanza still be able to acquire a weapon in that situation? Come on, he KILLED HIS OWN MOTHER for a gun; so you can be sure he'd have gotten one elsewhere.
10) Let's go Steven Spielberg on this problem and assume space aliens show up and use some bizarre technology to get rid of all guns. Well, even so, fire and explosives would still exist and as Brian Palmer has noted in Slate, those can be even more effective killers than guns.
Guns aren't even the most lethal mass murder weapon. According to data compiled by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, guns killed an average of 4.92 victims per mass murder in the United States during the 20th century, just edging out knives, blunt objects, and bare hands, which killed 4.52 people per incident. Fire killed 6.82 people per mass murder, while explosives far outpaced the other options at 20.82. Of the 25 deadliest mass murders in the 20th century, only 52 percent involved guns.
If gun control advocates like Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg and Michael Moore, all of whom have armed guards protecting their safety, succeed in making guns less available for law abiding citizens, it wouldn't stop another Newtown massacre, but ironically it would make it easier for rapists, gangs or even the next Adam Lanza to hurt innocent people.
Gun control is not about stopping future shootings, it’s all about communism.
This isn’t about guns, it’s about power-power that the socialists think we’ll just casually hand to them. that isn’t how it works though. Power is never freely given, it’s taken. You want the power democrats? come and and take it-come and take it one citizen at a time. Come and take it liberals. I dare you.
It’s about control
There was a recent posting on FR (might have been American Thinker), which made a convincing argument that Liberalism was a religion. Gun control is part of the utopian dream and therefore a canonized tenant of the utopian religion. The idea here is that if you can start making the religious tenants come about that eventually we’ll live in utopia. Frankly, I think utopia would be boring.
They’ve kicked all their attacks on America up by several notches over the past week.
I just wish the GOP would learn some fighting tactics and put them on the defensive once in a while.
With progressives, it’s all about control! (See my tagline for more information on how I really “feel” about this issue.)
tenet
And yes, that sounds pretty spot on. If you come across it again I’d love a ping, and will probably try to look for that later when I have some time.
Every law is about control. We’ve gone too far with laws and there’s always a call for just one more law. We’re always one law away from perfection.
No law can control human nature. Only the person themselves has that much control. We need to return to a fundamental understanding of human nature, Natural Law, and reality.
Many of the sheeple still think the left means them no harm.
The reality is going to be a rude awakening.
Was this it?
The God Complex - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2969585/posts
Yes, saw that one, great points there!
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part 2, Chapter 3, Page 404
Probably a tenet too.
The best ways to stop them is still to committ extremely disturbed people if possible, and to arm more people to stop the maniacs when they go off. Hire an old geezer like the old coot who stopped that robbery in the Florida casino. That old codger moved very fast and wasn't the least bit afraid to confront the armed punks.
More in general, it's moving toward a government that doesn't represent the people and fears them.
Also handily found on my FR profile page for quick reference.
When I first read Atlas Shrugged ~30 years ago, I never thought I’d be living in the middle of it.
Thanks, will read later, about to hit the road.
Don’t confuse a Liberal with logic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.