Why have any laws at all?

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BAB

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On Hannity and Colmes tonight, it was brought up that we already have 20,000+ gun laws on the books nationwide and that more won't help. The basic argument was that criminals are criminals because they don't obey the law. Alan Colmes then brought up the point that if we (pro-gunners) want to use that argument, then why have any laws at all.

I'm tired tonight, and my mind has already started shutting down for the evening. Therefore, I'm having a hard time coming up with a good rebuttal. But it is something that I'd like to be able to refute should this question be posed to me in the future. So, what would you all suggest as a good response to what Alan said?
 
That makes me wonder when the first gun law was passed by Congress.

Anybody know?

[This message has been edited by sensop (edited March 01, 2000).]
 
I'll take a shot. My theory is that normal laws (murder, rape, theft, etc.) are not aimed at preventing the crime at all, when you get people down to their real beliefs. Takes some badgering to get there. Those laws are really aimed at removing or reforming the criminal after the fact. That's why longer sentences for murder actually help--you aren't preventing the first murder anyone's going to commit but you ARE taking known murderers out of circulation.

The fallacy of gun laws, drug prohibition, knife laws, etc. is that they are passed with impossible intent. These laws are intended to prevent the crime before it happens, which can't be done by taking away an object even if people did obey it. Put simply, gun laws and other forms of "object prohibition" are a class of law all their own--and a particularly useless one at that. Hope that made sense. It's late for me too.
 
Sensop, I believe the first federal gun control law was in the late 1930's. IIRC it was pretty limited, just restricting full-auto ownership.

Gwinny, sounds like you got it right tired or not.

Eric

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Does the "X" ring have to be that small?
 
At the risk of getting this thread moved to the Political Forum, I will point out that the Libertarian Party agrees with you. There are way too many mostly unenforceable laws, most devised as band-aids so that legislators would not have to deal with the REAL problems.

Laws aren't going to fix the world's problems. The only way to do that is social change through education. Prohibition didn't get rid of alcohol, it just created a criminal class of rum-runners that persists today as the Mafia. As we've learned more about the effects of alcohol, and raised awareness about things like drunk driving or fetal alcohol syndrome, people are drinking in a more responsible manner.

As someone said "It may take a million years to change people's minds through persuasion, but that's quicker than you'll do it by force!"


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Dave
Deep in the Florida Swamps
 
yep...we are moving to Legal/Political.



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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
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