Cultural trends have made it an American tradition to freak out over gun laws as the culprit for the blood spilt after there is a mass murder with a gun (while mass murders using other more legally obtained objects like box cutters on 9/11 don’t share a similar discrimination after the event) and the Orlando gay club massacre was no different.
Obviously this is dopey, since murder is the bad part of the situation – not the thing a murderer uses to murder. So why is it so not obvious to so many? Emotional confirmation bias, mostly, is my guess. Because when you actually examine the prudence of what gun laws in America are vs the claims of what they should be, you don’t come up with a lot of murder prevention but you do come up with a lot of “protecting against getting murdered” prevention. The truth is that the so called loopholes in gun laws aren’t aiding any kind of pattern of gun abuse, and of course the blaring fact that America is awash with guns and crime is at a record low. So what’s the deal, yo?
Even though I don’t like guns and kindov want them all illegal, I don’t see the prudence in restricting them to the mass public when there are so many in the free flowing market to those with murderous intent. If you think laws are the answer to gun murders, why don’t you just make murder illegal, you dumb hippies? What makes people think that pre-meditated murder can be curtailed by laws offering punishment on the use or access of special kinds of weapons used to murder is beyond me – but more importantly – it’s beyond the people who think that as well, evidently. I know because I ask these people all the time and the lack of having thought about the fact that there is already a life sentence or lifetime imprisonment penalty in place on pre-meditated murder is always the most glaring take-away from the exchange.
As much as I don’t love being on the so called “gun nut” side of the issue, it seems fairly clear that more gun control measures than not are shady attempts at 2nd amendment suppression than they are stopping crazy people from getting deadly weapons in service to the public safety and I’m more interested in solving problems (see: preventing murder) than I am feeding my emotional distaste for weapons that easily (with the squeeze of a finger) take precious human life.
But these arguments that keep popping up all over the popular punditry and social media in the wake of a mass shooting are so non-persuasive that I get disappointed at those persuaded by them.
For instance, the idea that “semi-automatic”(“fully automatic” –aka- machine guns aren’t legal for civilian use) guns shouldn’t be legal. What? People should have to reload their weapon after every shot? So if you have multiple attackers you just have to call a time-out in between reloads? And I’m tired of hearing the canard about the 2nd amendment being made for (and thus only applies to) single firing muskets… Ignoring the history that that’s not even accurate since there were “multiple shot without having to reload in between every firing” firearms – or what we now call “semi-automatic” in existence at the time of the 2nd amendments drafting – the logic just doesn’t hold up to level-one scrutiny.
The right to protect yourself with projectile weaponry (that doesn’t require you to be physically strong, agile, or studied in martial arts or swordplay) is not changed by modernization any more than the right to speak freely without obstruction or persecution from the government is changed by modern methods of broadcasting and distribution. You dummies who think you’re so clever saying the 2nd amendment only applies to muskets that need to be reloaded after every firing are accidentally arguing for the First amendment to apply only to paper distribution of words and real-time vocalized speech (making it extra ironic when people make the “2nd amendment was for muskets” argument on digital distribution platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube – which I’m more than 90% sure wasn’t in circulation around the time the first amendment was drafted).
Usually the fall-back argument for this and every other Government led freedom restriction goes back to saying “you don’t need it though” as the crux of the argument justifying taking something away. It’s basically the essence of Leftism in one sentence, really: “I will decide what you need and then use the force of government [backed by guns] to make sure you don’t get more than what I have decided you need”.
A less totalitarian, less civil-liberty encroaching argument would be a focus on “if you are X, Y, Z [criminally ineligible to access firearms] then you cant have a gun” rather than the argument of “*you don’t need* [a gun that I think looks scary]”.
Why isn’t all of this obvious? The scary part is that I think it is but its just that emotional issues let individuals emotions redirect from the obvious.
I find that a lot more terrifying than non-restrictive gun laws.