Ok, so am I beating this gun thing to death on a fishing blog. Why? Because most of us that fish also hunt and have a shared interest in the gun rights issue. The problem is that the NRA has become the poster child for the neocon extreme right- or, if I must digress, extreme right. Do they care about environmental issues, habitat, wildlife management, or responsible gun ownership? I don’t hear them saying much about it. In fact you don’t hear them saying much about the Supreme courts ruling in June in favor of individual gun rights either.
Check out the BradyCampaign.org site. And former US Representative from Montana, Pat Williams. Are these guys to “soft” on the issue? At least they don’t seem rabid. A tad more moderate, even rational.
What’s left for NRA? The assault weapons ban. The right to arm yourself with an arsenal of assault rifles. In case you haven’t been reading the news- Obama win spurs US gun sales. Is this the beginning of an assault weapons market bubble?
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Testify, Wayne. The NRA has become a single issue organization to the detriment of every other issue that your typical hunter holds important. Much in the same way that the Repubs have adopted certain “personal choice (abortion, gay marriage, etc)” issues to attract a certain blue collar segment, while in no other way through their policies doing anything for them.
No offense, but the only difference I see between assault weapons and hunting rifles is the way they are packaged, and promoted, (or demonized). In fact I think there is way too much hype in the .223, it is only an intermediate powered round, and the 7.62×39 is a joke compared to the .308 winchester, and there are in fact many semi-automatic hunting rifles on the market, although I still think my bolt-action Springfield is probably a little more accurate down range.
What I know is that gun bans simply won’t stop with anything. If we give them ground, they will get a running start. Assault Weapon is a very broad term, and would include rifles like the Ar-15, Which I use quite often. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Don’t let the ban go through.
To me the problem is that assault weapons in the wrong hands do a lot of damage. As you say, people kill people but I don’t buy the argument that guns don’t kill people. Assault weapons are built mainly for what? Not hunting, not recreation (in general), but for killing people. That’s their main purpose. What’s the weapons intended purpose and whose going to use it? People, and in our so called “civilized” societies the weapon of choice to kill other people with is more often than not, a gun.
We see the whack jobs on the news all the time going on killing rampages, they aren’t shooting Saturday night specials, they are shooting semi/automatic weapons. Gangs and drug runners love assault weapons, read the papers in some of the border towns like El Paso.
What kind of society are we becoming when we feel we need to have our own private arsenals?
The ideology that, “guns don’t kill people” is not exactly literal. It means that guns don’t kill people by themselves. Gun rights advocates usually believe that the best way to control gun violence is by subduing the people who kill people with guns. In Switzerland, guns are a common part of society. You see everyday people in the grocery store carrying SIG 550s around and there is virtually no violent crime there. Also, probably the most violent town the the world, Juarez Mexico, has extremely tight gun control. And we’re not just finding American stuff there. Lets just say it’s not easy to buy hand grenades and RPGs legally in the United States. It’s obvious that gun laws don’t get rid of criminals, and criminals will get guns no matter what. The easiest solution is to arm the people, so they can protect their lives, freedom, families and property.
I hope you don’t think I’m against gun ownership because I am most definitely not. I question the necessity of military grade weapons in the general marketplace. It seems to me it’s kind of a “cold war” mentality where everyone has to stock pile more and more and bigger and bigger types of arms to feel protected.