Posted on 02/18/2020 5:03:21 AM PST by Kaslin
One of the Democrats’ favorite talking points on gun control is that we don’t need military weapons of war on America’s streets. Former mayor Pete Buttigieg has been the most effective of the presidential candidates at making this claim, because of his military background. If anyone knows whether a gun is a military weapon, it is surely an Afghanistan War veteran who was trained on these weapons.
Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is the only other remaining candidate with military experience, having been a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard for 17 years, and she is the least outspoken about gun control.
“As someone who trained on weapons of war, I can tell you that there are weapons that have absolutely no place in American cities or neighborhoods in peacetime, ever,” Buttigieg declared at the Miami Democratic Presidential Debate in June last year.
“I think the weapons of war can do no good in American neighborhoods,” Buttigieg told CNN’s “New Day” last August. “I trained on weapons that are similar to these. And they have one purpose, which is to destroy as much as possible, as quickly as possible. They have tactical uses in war zones. Since when are American cities and neighborhoods supposed to be war zones?”
It is a theme that he has pushed endlessly.
But there are a few problems with Buttigieg’s claims. First, he never had military training, let alone weapons training. He never even received leadership training.
Naval officers typically go through four years at Annapolis or another military academy. Otherwise, they attend ROTC during college or complete Officer Candidate School as postgraduates. All of these programs involve extensive training. Instead, Buttigieg used a used little-known loophole — direct commission in the reserves — to skip all of the training that other officers receive.
Second, no self-respecting military in the world would use the “assault weapons” that we sometimes see in mass shootings. AR-15s fire the same sorts of bullets as small game-hunting rifles, and even do so with the same velocity and rapidity (one bullet per pull of the trigger). In fact, AR-15s aren’t allowed for deer hunting in most states because of the fear that they will wound rather than kill the animals. This may cause the deer to die slowly and painfully.
Buttigieg may be correct that weapons of war are designed to “destroy as much as possible, as quickly as possible.” But that’s not the story of civilian gun use. Guns can also be used to protect people and keep them from harm. About 95% of the time that people use guns defensively, they simply brandish the gun and cause the criminals to break of their attack.
Buttigieg supports virtually every other gun control law that is being pushed, from licensing requirements to mandatory gun locks.
There are few differences among the remaining Democrat presidential candidates. Even the supposedly “moderate” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) supports mandatory gun buybacks, though she insists that this is “not gun confiscation because you give them the offer to buy back their gun.” This is still taking guns away from people, whether or not you stuff some cash in their pockets when you do it.
Another candidate who is selling himself as a moderate is former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. His opposition to private gun ownership is well known. He is willing to start with a “voluntary buyback and ban on purchasing assault weapons, before enforcing a mandatory buyback.”
Buttigieg, however, is almost too good to be true for gun control advocates. By appearing to know about guns, he gives their ill-informed claims legitimacy. But Buttigieg should do the right thing and try to really educate Americans about firearms. He should admit that the AR-15 and other “assault weapons” function nothing like true weapons of war.
Trucks
Jeeps
Humvees
Helicopters
Planes
People are allowed to own each of these if they choose.
John is making a “tactical” argument here, but Americans have the right to “weapons of war”.
So the North Vietnam military defeated us because they had the better weapons.
I see.
This crap about “weapons of war” is just a smokescreen for the Democrat’s true intent - total civilian disarmament. After all once you’re disarmed and helpless there isn’t any limit as to what an armed government can do to you. The second amendment was written to protect “weapons of war.” not to keep deer hunters from having to pursue animals with bow and arrows.
The term ‘militia’ isn’t geared to bake cookies, collect plastic bottles along the highway, paint barns, pick pecans, shovel snow, repair wooden fences, or settle arguments over church parking spots. I think this is what the general political crowd has missed in this entire discussion.
What?
I thought that was Johnson and Hanoi Jane?
A “weapon” is defined by an object’s intended use. A length of pipe or a baseball bat can be weapons if used to threaten or to inflict bodily harm. Firearms may or may not be weapons. Intent cannot be ascribed to an inanimate object.
Oops
Hitler did *not* repeal most gun laws.
He enforced them against Jews and his political enemies.
“In Gun Control in the Third Reich, Stephen P. Halbrook gives a decisive historical answer to a question which has generally been discussed without much evidence in the political discourse of recent years. Now there is no doubt: Halbrook shows that the Nazis relied on gun control to carry out its totalitarian program. Indeed, by means of painstaking historical research, he shows that the weapon confiscations and punishments of the Third Reich relied very much on the earlier registration measures of the democratic Weimar Republic. This pioneering book tells an essential story that is central to the history of the modern Leviathan state. Highly recommended!” —L. Hunt Tooley, Professor of History, Austen College; whose books include Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, Battleground and Home Front in the First World War, and National Identity and Weimar Germany
Dictators have consistently allowed their supporters to be armed.
Back in the 80’s gays had a “gun control” issue.
As a result 100,000’s of people have died or suffered unnecessarily.
Peter Gunn grabber.
Double your fun with Doublemint gum!
The 5.56 mm round is not a good hunting round because of lethality issues.
He’s no better than the other dems. He would take guns from non-violent citizens and leave them in the hands of violent criminals.
The 2nd amendment protects our right to “weapons of war.”
“Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
Tench Coxe
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