Finally wrote my response to him. Just for clarification, this friend of mine were having this discussion on a message board that both of us frequent.
WARNING, MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT AHEAD!
Friend wrote:
"Exactly. The problem here is that his mother had a legally owned semi automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. If all his mom had was a bolt action hunting rifle then maybe someone would have been able to over power him between shots, or at the least it would give the kids more time to run away when he started shooting. Anything is better than nothing."
No, it is not because she owned a "Semi Automatic rifle with detachable magazines. It is because she failed to secure them properly while she knew she had a child who was known to be unstable. It is now known that she was looking to get him admitted to a local mental institution which may have been contributing factor in motivating him to shoot up the school.
You're last line "Anything is better than nothing" gives me the inkling that you are responding emotionally whether you realize it or not.
Lets break it down. Essentially you're saying that if we make the "Necessary and common sense" sacrifices to our "2nd Amendment right" which is the right to keep and bare arms, the right to defend against tyranny and the right to defend ourselves and our property, that in the end, such sacrifices will be well worth it if it saves even a few lives.
If that is the case, we could do away with many civil liberties and rights, because doing so would save lives even if it's just a few.
For example, lets ban Alcohol, sure there are millions of individuals out there that drink responsibly, sure some get a little stupid while drunk but it's all harmless, however, their is that one little minority, the ones that will get behind the wheel of a car, or in a fit of drunken lust, rapes someone it should be banned no? If we can save a few lives it would be worth it right? Is that fair to the rest of the populace, no of course it's not, but it's not about punishing the masses it's about keeping those who would abuse liqueur and or are too irresponsible to handle it.
How about pocket knives? Knives are used in most cases as a utility tool, when you're out hiking and need to cut a piece of rope, or you're trying to open a box. However, there are those who are quite temperamental and in a fit of rage, for whatever reason, ends up stabbing someone, perhaps fatally. Lets ban knives as well, because someone, somewhere might just decide that the person who just happened to insult them deserves to be stabbed.
Let's get down to something more relevant to us here at SEC. Lets ban violent video games, movies, books etc. it has an influence on us right? I mean, games like Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War, Halo all glorify violence, someone might be inspired to go out and shoot, bomb, stab etc. by these horrible pieces of media that do nothing but glorify the darker side of humanity.
Let's limit what we can talk about, if we start talking poorly of another nation, culture or religion, say those from the middle east, some extremist group may decide that we have offended Allah and go bomb an American establishment. If it's to save a few lives, then surely giving up part of our right of free speech is worth it right?
What about sports cars? Do you really need a car that can go well over 100MPH? Why do you need 400-700 horsepower? lets ban sports cars, because if we ban sports cars young men who think they're invincible and like to play out The Fast and Furious out on public roads won't be risking their lives or those around them as they hot rod around town. We can certainly save lives by banning those too.
I think you get my point.
Friend wrote:
"You track the guns that accept them."
So you want every single firearm to be tracked that can be accept a magazine to be tracked in a database. Admirable, ambitious and extremely costly. First, we have to assume that every fire arms owner will obey the law and register his or her firearm, this law will only work with those who actually will abide by said law. Those who are more extreme and or stubborn may just ignore this all together and decide to secretly hold onto their firearms and not register them.
So how do you enforce this law? Go from house to house and do an inspection to ensure that everyone has registered their rifles/pistols that can accept a magazine?
That's a violation of the 4th amendment that being the unlawful act of search and or seizure without a legal warrant to do so.
Friend wrote:
"Pump action is slower than semi automatic. Just because there are still ways to kill people doesn't mean we should keep anything more deadly legal."
James Eagen Holmes, the nut job that decided to walk into a theater in Aurora brought with him a S&W M&P AR15 with a 100 round magazine, Glock 22 and a Remington 870 12g shotgun. After thirty rounds the AR15 jammed and him not knowing how to clear said jam abandoned the firearm and still managed to kill 12 and injure 58. This was in a crowded theater, no one else was armed, and Mr. Holmes was not a military vet, nor was he exactly the most physically fit. There were hundreds of people there, they could have easily overpowered him and taken his shotgun away right?
Friend wrote:
"So make the sale of further magazines and semi auto pistols illegal, eventually the older pistols and magazines will wear out and there won't be many produced to replace the old ones."
We have firearms that date back to the civil war that are still functioning to this day, some firearms are even older. Magazines that were in use since the Korean war that are also still functioning. Magazines are simply molded plastic or stamped aluminum or steel sheet metal with a spring inside them. They are not exactly complex pieces of hardware, they are simply to fabricate and repair if necessary. As I had mentioned before, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to make a spring, anyone with some basic knowledge and basic tools could probably fabricate new springs for their magazines if they so desired making this argument practically a moot point.
A good example of how long firearms last is the Mosin Nagant M1895 double action revolver invented in Soviet Russia. These handguns can still be found on the surplus market, this is a handgun that's been around for 118 years that still functions to this day!
Friend wrote:
"Alcohol is not firearms. Everyone drinks alcohol whereas owning firearms is not really something everyone does, and if they do do it, it's like an old handgun in their desk drawer. Firearms is a much less practiced activity. Equivalent to maybe just rum by itself and not all of alcohol. And then banning just semi auto magazine firearms would limit that further to like a certain flavor of rum. If all prohibition did was ban a certain flavor of rum, people would have just switched to wine or beer or a different flavor of rum. No alcohol kingpins."
Okay, so we ban certain types of alcohol. You know, here in Utah the sale of alcohol that has an alcohol content of greater than 3.2% from being sold in commercial grocery stores. If you want to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels for example, you must go to a liqueur store to do so. Furthermore, restaurants, bars and other locations/venues that allow the purchase of said alcoholic beverages are prohibited from selling them before 11:30AM and no later than 1:00AM. Does this stop accidents caused by individuals whom are intoxicated? Does this prevent some of the more shady establishments from selling alcohol outside the legal time limits? No they don't, I hear about people getting drunk all the time and doing stupid things all the time, both of legal and illegal drinking age.
To stop the horrors involved with crimes that are committed while being intoxicated you would have to ban Alcohol in its entirety, but society won't accept that, after all, what gives the government the right to say that I don't need alcohol in my life. That's like saying you and me are too irresponsible to be trusted with such a dangerous beverage. We wouldn't want to risk other peoples safety based on what we MIGHT do while being intoxicated right?
Friend wrote:
"The goal isn't to punish the innocent. It's not about what's fair, it's about saving lives. TBH I don't really think there's a need for more gun regulation. These freak school accidents are really insignificant, more people die in car crashes daily than what occurred there. It's just more shocking when it's all in one place. But if there was to be any kind of gun regulation passed, decreasing the amount of semi auto magazine fed weapons on the market would do the most to decrease the lethality against large groups of humans in legal weapons."
In China, there is an outright ban on firearms by the civilian populace, on March 23 2010, there was a gentleman by the name of Zheng Minsheng who walked into a school and proceeded to murder eight elementary children in Nanping
Later that same year in on April 28, a copycat nut job by the name of Chen Kangbing walked into a school located in Guandong province China and wounded 16 students and one teacher
April 29, a man by the name of Xu Yuyuan went to a kindergarten and stabbed 28 students two teachers and a security guard. most of these children were around 4 years old
August 4th 2010 a young man attacked 20 children and a teacher killing three kids and one teacher at a Kindergarten located in Zibo, Shandong province
September 2011 a young girl and three adults were killed by an axe wielding man by the name of Wang Hongbi
As you can see, people regardless of what "Laws" you put into place will find a means to commit an atrocity. If evil has taken root in their hearts they will find the means to kill if they are determined to do so.
"But he used a blade, and the deaths were much lower than what happened with the Aurora and Sandy Hook shootings"
lets put this into perspective.
The Bath School tradgedy is one of the most horrific and tragic loss of life in the history or mass murders that have occurred at a school. On May 18 1927, Andrew Kehoe bombed an elementary school in Bath Township Michigan killing 38 children, 6 adults and wounding 58 other individuals. In this incident, he manufactured the bombs used in this mass murder out of what is called Pyrotol, an incendiary explosive used by farmers to excavated and burning debris.
Not a single shot was fired in this incident. "But that happened over 80 years ago, you can't relate that to now, we have regulations that alert law enforcement of such large purchases of fertilizer and so on"
On April 19 1995, one of the most horrific and deadly bombings occurred in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This event is second in terms of deadliness only to the events that occurred on Semptember 11 2001.
This single event claimed 168 lives injured over 680 people and destroyed 324 buildings in a sixteen block radius, burned or destroyed at least 86 cars and shattered the windows of over 258 nearby buildings. The estimated total costs in damages was over 652 million dollars.
All this was the result of some home fabricated bombs made from 5000lb of Ammonium Nitrate mixed with 1200lb of liquid Nitromethane and 350lb of Tovex (A water-gel explosive composed of ammonium nitrate and methylammonium nitrate used in construction) placed into a single Ryder truck which contained 16 55 gallon drums that contained the explosive compounds.
Friend wrote:
"I didn't say I agreed with that law and I'm not saying I agree with this law. I'm just saying a ban on guns that accept magazines would be the most effective gun limiting regulation, if there was to be any sort of gun limiting regulation. Banning guns that happen to look like military weapons based on aesthetics like laser sights or bayonets is flat out retarded."
Please see my previous comments
Friend wrote:
"It's a lot easier to take some guns off the market than to change human nature."
There is nothing "Easy" about this problem, this is an issue that spans decades and across multiple generations. There is no "Quick fix" to this highly complex problem. You want a magic button that will suddenly make a huge impact on helping to mitigate or curbing these things from happening, but the answer is that there simply isn't one. As I have clearly shown, regardless of what we do, evil will do what it does, we limit one tool, all they'll do is go to another one, anyone with internet access can easily obtain instructions on how to assemble a pipe bomb. Arguably a dozen or more of those could fit inside a school backpack. pack those with some nails or some other form of shrapnel and toss two or perhaps a dozen of those into a crowded area such as a shopping mall plaza or at a concert and the death toll would be staggering.
It doesn't even have to be a pipe bomb, Muratic Acid and Chlorene could be used to create gas oriented bombs, which have been used as recent ass 2007 in Iraq, killing at least thirty and wounding or sickening at least 350.
A couple dozen containers of gasoline placed strategically around an office building or some other establishment could kill and or injure dozens if not hundreds.
Friend wrote:
"Most of these psychos kill themselves during the act. They don't care about the consequence."
Exactly, these individuals are so sick in the head, that they simply don't care if they live or die, they are determined to carry out their actions regardless of the consequences. If they can't use a gun, they'll find another means to do so, you are only inconveniencing them by limiting only one tool that is in their arsenal. The ones who are really losing out are the law abiding, those who will actually obey the regulations and the injustice pushed upon them that are passed in an attempt to keep those who already don't care and don't follow the laws from carrying out whatever evil they are going to commit.
Criminals do not care about the laws, they never have, they never will. ****** off and disgruntled teen who's been bullied too much at school, or religious extremist. It matters not, if they want to kill, it will happen whether they use a bolt action rifle, baseball bat or fire axe.
I stress, laws do nothing, and I repeat, NOTHING to curb violence, be it from a teen who steals their parents guns, to Joe Slime who got his from shady bob down in the alley behind a Seven Eleven.
Social morals, the degradation of society and a generation that does not know how to deal with their problems is the real issue which in of itself is a mortal flaw that goes straight to the core of humanity.
Mass murders and the like have occurred long before firearms have ever existed. In Rwanda Africa, some mass killings that occurred in the mass genocide didn't even involve firearms, they used Machetes.
Not trying to sound condescending, but please think about this for a little. Looking at the horrors that happen in this world, do you still honestly think that banning something as easily produced as "semi auto firearms" (Assault rifles and Assault pistols as the anti' like to call them) and magazines will solve our problems, or do you think that maybe, just maybe, humanity is grievously ill and in need of being treated?
It's a dauntless and a task that appears to be a hopeless cause, but you know what, the vast majority of firearms owners abhor such violence, and would more than likely leap to defend you and yours if called to do so. If I could ensure that not one more child would be killed, not a single parent would have to endure the sorrow and horror of having to bury their daughter, son, husband, wife, mother, father or anyone else they hold near and dear by turning in my guns, I would do it in a heartbeat. I wish we never had need of them, I wish I could live in a world where we were free from having to worry about some scumbag trying to take what is mine or yours, but the fact is, we don't live in a world like that, things are not rainbows and pink butterflies like in Equestria where pastel colored ponies with cutie marks frolick in the sun without a care in the world.
There is a very dark side to human nature, and since you can't outlaw evil, I'd rather have something that can defend me, my own and perhaps if the situation presented itself you and yours as well. In this day and age, the greatest equalizer that a civilian can legally own is a gun, and in the case that evil brings friends, I'd rather count on my rifle or handgun packing equally as many "friends" to persuade evil from targeting me.
Again why you ask do I "Need a 10, 15, 20, 30 round semi auto rifle/pistol?"
It takes more than a few rounds to take incapacitate someone, it's not like in the movies where the assailant goes down after one, two or even three shots to the chest.
There are numerous cases where the both LEO' and civilians wielding a firearm would pump their target with nearly a dozen rounds and they simply keep going at them. Remember when I said you could miss a lot while under the affects of adrenaline, well, when you hit, you're not guaranteed to hit their vitals either, what does this mean? they can keep on coming at you. Sometimes even if you do manage to get at least one shot in, the nut job is sometimes under the influence of drugs such as Meth or Bath Salts. My uncle told me of reports where criminals would take multiple shots to the torso from a .45 and still keep going.
Now having more rounds doesn't mean it will ensure that your target will be stopped, but it gives you a bigger margin of error, a greater safety net so to speak.
The Anti's want to take away our means to defend ourselves, please read the following articles.\
http://now.msn.com/12-year-old-girl-shoots-home-invader-through-closet-door
http://now.msn.com/teen-babysitting-siblings-shoots-armed-intruder
http://now.msn.com/washingtons-first-day-of-legal-pot-marked-by-two-deaths
So the above have no right to have the means to equalize the terms of engagement and defend themselves? The Anti-gun crowd certainly think so. Many constantly think about guns being in the hands of adults, where they may have the ability to fight and overcome their assailants, but what of the 12 year old girl or the 14 year old boy? how many at that age would have the physical ability to over power a fully grown and determined man or woman, one that may or may not be under the influence of some kind of stimulant?
Again, guns are an equalizer and a tool for the law abiding, a weapon and tool for chaos and anarchy for those who are not.
Stop blaming the tool, stop blaming a peripheral problem caused by a much more complex and deeper issue. Stop wasting our tax dollars and energy on laws, programs and regulations that in the end do not contribute to actually solving the real issues that plague our unfortunately violent society.
This is a Social issue that you, me and everyone else here have the ability to make a difference on. Even if you can't change others, you can influence them with your own actions, by providing a stable foundation for your own families if you choose to have one some day. Maybe just maybe, when both you and I are pushing up daisies, they too will pass on your own wisdom and learn from our mistakes, slowly countering the damage that continues to fester from generation to generation. THAT is how you help fix society, every contribution helps.
We all have a choice, it's up to you and me to make the right ones.
