Why on earth US allows sale of Semi-Automatic weaponry to the public?

[barend31]

First, I would like to address my opponent's use of the Constitutional 2nd Amendment;
Like he said, it does not state which type of firearms. It should be common knowledge that when this amendment was made, weaponry was significantly different from the way it is today. The rifles took about 30 seconds to reload for one shot and they were not even accurate enough to aim for a target 200 feet away. Thinking realistically, would our forefathers have set that amendment the same way if the weapons were able to kill 10 people in 5 seconds?

I would now like to address my opponent's 1st point;
"It gives law-abiding citizens the means to defend themselves from criminals, who by definition do not follow the law..."
So by this reasoning, my opponent is basically saying that we as law-abiding citizens have the right to kill a non law-abiding with a semi-sutomatic weapon if he/she tries to steal a hat off out head.
According to my opponent's reasoning, we can say to the police, "I shot him 5 times in the back because I was defending myself from him." Police says, "Oh, what did he do?" Citizen, "He tried to steal me hat."

Now i will address point 2;
"It ensures the ability of the people to enforce their sovereignty and their right to elect and legitimize a democratic form of government."
My opponent later goes on to say, because we as citizens have these semi-automatic weapons, it prevents the leader from using force because 300 million armed citizens will fight back.
This is simply immoral. It will never be socially acceptable for a citizen to fire upon a leader.

Now to address my opponents next point;
A militia has not been used or even remotely needed in the US for hundreds of years. Again, not socially acceptable. It will never be socially acceptable in the US for a group of people to roam the streets with semi-automatic weapons ready to kill another group of people.

On the last point;
So just because it is just as easy for a serial killer to kill people another way, it makes it okay to keep the weapons just giving him/her another option?

[armin]

Liberty. Rather fond of it.

[pannoowau]

Your first name is Tom, your surname and all your posts are private. Who is your opponent? This post looks like a rant to me.

[ricki]

Semiauto guns. Outlawing everything besides muskets. You stupid?

[flannagain]

The US people were guaranteed a means to protect themselves from the government via our fore fathers in the Constitution. It wasn't directed at protecting ourselves from each other.

[lundie]

There are no mass shootings anywhere people are known to be armed this only happens at places people are known to be unarmed (gun free zones).

[torin7]

The reason the majority of gun proponents object to a ban on assault rifles is because gun opponents would not stop there. The gun opponents next argument would be why do you need a .45 or .357 when you really need no more than a 9mm to protect yourself. Once the .45 and .357 were banned they would argue that a .22 was adequate for self defense. Eventually they would be saying, you can't stop tyranny with a sling shot and you might put someones eye out so you don't need that either! The party of incremental-ism is not to be trusted. Capice?

[dureau]

I would agree that when the constitution was written, state of the art was the musket. Kind of hard to "go postal" when it takes 30-60 seconds to reload. However, I get the impression that you are confusing "Semi-Automatic" with "Fully-Automatic". Semi-Automatic means, if you pull the trigger it fires, and then if you pull the trigger again, it will fire again (it automatically cocks the gun after firing). Full-Auto means if you hold down on the trigger, it will just keep firing. Where Semi-Auto gets a lot of press is when a manufacturer takes a Full-Auto gun (which is not legal to sell to the public) and makes a Semi-Auto version of it (which is legal to sell), but then it ends up being easy to convert it back to Full-Auto. Bear in mind too, with a pump action shotgun, you can hold down on the trigger and just keep pumping the gun, and frankly, with a little practice, you can put as much if not more lead down range than a full-auto gun.

"Citizens Defending Themselves" - your example of shooting someone for stealing your hat would not go unpunished. You have to have justification to use deadly force. Your life has to be threatened, etc. Shooting someone in the back is pretty much proof positive that they were not a threat to you when you shot them. You can claim it was self defense, but your jury isn't going to buy it.

"Citizens ensuring their government listens to them" - this was, in fact, the impetus behind the 2nd Amendment - Jefferson has said so himself. So if your leader was Adolf Hitler, it would be immoral for a citizen to shoot him? Dictatorships stay in power by ensuring that their citizens are incapable of rising up and overthrowing the government. The intention was that because the government knows that if they don't listen to the people, the people can overthrow them, that they will have to listen to the people, and will be prevented from becoming a dictatorship. Here's where the musket comes into play. Back then, a musket was the weapon of the day, and citizens could use it for hunting, etc. State of the art in the military today is way beyond what we want citizens possessing. Do you want citizens to go around purchasing tanks, jet fighters, anti-aircraft missiles, etc.? Going Postal with an M1 Abrams is way different than going postal with a musket. Obviously citizens rising up and overthrowing a bad government is just not feasible with modern state of the art weapons. We need to depend upon "Militias" for this - and by "Militia" I don't mean a bunch of citizens running around in the woods playing war games. I mean the National Guard. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the right to bear arms means you have a right to have a National Guard composed of Citizen Soldiers, and not an individual right (say for a felon) to possess a firearm. The National Guard should prevent the Army from being able to enforce the will of a dictator on the people.

Update - So what keeps common sense legistation limiting Semi-Auto versions of Full-Auto weapons, or say limiting the size of clips for guns to say 5 bullets, and things like that? It is this fear that it will be a bit by bit chipping away of rights.

[mads]

Why do you feel it is more socially acceptable for a young woman to be raped and strangeled with her own pantie hose, than it is for her to explain to the police why she shot the scumbag 6 times?

Only a complete fool would not own a firearm for protection! The firearm is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, or rapist, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation, and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Not to mention what our fore father thought when they protected our right to keep and bear arms.

"The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens .... from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms .... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."- Thomas Jefferson

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -Richard Henry Lee

And for those who are just to stupid to understand what was meant by those quotes, Thomas Jefferson knew that there would be idiots that couldn't understand the above, so he said it plain enough so even the most stupid could understand when he said. "No free man shall be debarred the use of arms."

The peoples swords, and every other terrible instrument of the soldier, are the birth-right 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 Feb. 20, 1788

[brenn15]

because some people need 40 rounds to bring down an antelope.