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Please don't waste everyone's time by asking questions if you're going to summarily dismiss any response you don't like.
It’s not about liking or disliking what you said. You did not answer the question. I asked about Where limits should be and you responded with tangential facts about current lack of limits and a lynching meme.
I’d love to hear your answer if you have one to the question that was asked.
When people bring up this I don't think they realize that there are already very few limits on what you can own in the US... if you have the money. There's nothing inherently illegal about owning fighters or tanks, for example [0] [1]. If you browse through [2] you'll find plenty of examples of fully functional civilian owned large caliber cannon and artillery. So if you want your jet or tank to be fully functional that's totally doable. Cannons larger than .50 caliber and any kind of explosive (exploding rounds, bombs, missiles) are perfectly legal, but they're classified as destructive devices that require ATF approval and $200 tax to purchase (that's $200 per bomb or projectile). Of course if you're in a position like Mr. Private Air Force in the first link, you can get to buy these things pretty freely without the tax or oversight.
As for needing more than 5 rounds for self defense, well, it's a bit tongue in cheek but I go along with this logic: https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/am4epf/en...
0: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32869/this-man-owns-th...
1: https://www.hotcars.com/here-are-the-worlds-largest-private-...
This is tangentially interesting but not an answer to the question.
At the time of the founders, common citizens could legally own cannons.
Framers intended for individuals to be able to own weapons as powerful as what was available to the military at the time. I'd say framers wanted us to be able to legally buy tanks (with the gun still operational!).
By that logic then - nukes should be available to the public as well?
I think a good test is the risk an accident poses to others. An accident with a nuke, tank or fight jet can easily kill 10's, 100's or millions.
With guns, a bullet is a bullet for the most part (if we are talking about human fired calibers), an the risk any given undirected bullet poses is effectively the same. Larger magazines don't increase accident risk, while being automatic or explosive does.
I.E. if you're a responsible gun owner, an assault rifle with with a 100 round magazine carries the same risk to your neighbor as an old revolver (if not less since most old revolvers have no safety). The risk to others only diverges when you assume ill-intent, but then risks get whacky for tons of legal objects (plastic bags, cars, planes, pens, household chemicals).
One follow up question - does risk-with-ill-intent play into your calculus at all? EG if there was a gun that had same accident risk as a revolver but you could kill 1M people with it before being stopped, should that be legal? If not, where’s the limit of risk-with-Ill-intent.
A related, follow up question is your thoughts on requirements to get said items. Should background checks be required? Training?
I think a good test is the risk an accident poses to others. An accident with a nuke, tank or fight jet can easily kill 10's, 100's or millions.
With guns, a bullet is a bullet for the most part (if we are talking about human fired calibers), an the risk any given undirected bullet poses is effectively the same. Larger magazines don't increase accident risk, while being automatic or explosive does.
I.E. if you're a responsible gun owner, an assault rifle with with a 100 round magazine carries the same risk to your neighbor as an old revolver (if not less since most old revolvers have no safety). The risk to others only diverges when you assume ill-intent, but then risks get whacky for tons of legal objects (plastic bags, cars, planes, pens, household chemicals).
That’s really interesting - thanks for the thorough and thoughtful response!
My serious and simple response would be, why are you turning against law abiding citizens instead of focusing on the psycho criminal that was known to police prior to the event?
I’m out here just trying to understand the philosophy and frameworks people are using. I’ve not advocated for a single thing.
Sure, but a couple other confounding factors enter the picture. If you assume ill-intent, then you have to also assume subversion of the law, and you then have to consider what lines not only make sense from a risk perspective, but what line make sense in feasibility and outcome as well. This is where
> A related, follow up question is your thoughts on requirements to get said items. Should background checks be required? Training?
Comes in. For the situations where ill intent was involved, and the weapons being discuss did then pose a substantially greater risk to other people, would these things make a difference? I Think the answer is yes, but not significantly. Most of these mass shooters would have passed the kinds of background checks proposed, and training would not have lessened the number killed.
Personally I like red-flag laws (provided there is a framework for recourse when someone is falsely accused to prevent them from being abused) for reducing casualties from people with ill intent. It's better from a second amendment point of view since the government isn't the entity creating barriers, and it'd better from an enforcement point of view because requirements can be fuzzier. It's much easier to substantiate "this person represents a risk to others and the community they live in feels they should not have access to guns" than it is to convict someone of a crime that would disqualify them from gun ownership broadly. I think on paper it works out better as well, as with most of these shooters, people were definitely weary of them and had reason to believe they posed a risk, but they hadn't committed any crimes, so what were they supposed to do about it?