Comparing buying/owning an AK-47 to buying/owning alcohol or tobacco or a car is , I am sorry to say, beyond ridiculous. There are plenty of things that have the potential to have a harmful side effects, but their existence isn’t primarily or solely for causing death and mayhem, as an assault rifle is. Trying to rationalize owning something whose purpose is to cause destruction and death to a means of transportation is laughable. My cellphone can possibly cause a brain tumor; I could ride a bike and have a deadly accident. But the primary purpose of these items is not to cause death and destruction. People I don’t use alcohol or cigarettes to cause death to others.
I completely reject your premise that assault rifles are just fun little forms of recreation. If I drink a glass of wine or smoke (I dont) or use a cellphone I am potentially harming myself. I don’t drink and drive so its unlikely I would harm others. An AK-47 is predominantly for harming, no killing, others. There are plenty of other weapons you can use for recreational shooting, if you really consider shooting a “sport”. There is simply no rational justification for owning a weapon of such potential destruction.
Now off to have my morning cup of coffee. Uh oh, maybe that caffeine could kill me. Maybe I might burn myself with the coffeepot. Maybe this dangerous coffeepot should be compared to owning an AK 47 too.
In the recent London terror attack, the terrorist used a knife. Three people were stabbed, no one was killed and the perp was arrested by the police with a stun gun. If he had used an automatic weapon, the outcome would have been quite different and much worse.
And while my dangerous keurig is making my cuppa joe, I am thinking about all the medicines that were beneficial to many but had some potentially harmful effects so were pulled from the market, the pesticides that are now illegal, etc. There are la on the books for the safety of others. Prohibiting the private ownership of assault rifles should be one of them.
@cosmicfish - we do need to free the CDC and other groups to do studies. However, other groups and nations have compiled statistics - the most comprehensive coming from the University of Sydney from www.gunpolicy.org:
Yes, we must keep guns away from criminals, close loopholes, etc., but most crimes are committed by legal gun owners so (if we’re logical, and that’s a big IF) we must look at better regulating legal gun ownership.
Good posts, greenwitch. If organizations can do product safety research and certain fibers are removed from the market because they might be flammable, there should be a means, as in Australia, to to the kind of research you describe without the stronghold influence of outside organizations with an agenda.
IIRC, there is a presidential candidate who suggested that all Muslims should be required to identify themselves and be registered into some kind of national database (as opposed to be put in camps). It is very scary to me that this particular individual has garnered so much support. His suggestion just really harkens back to a dark time where people of a certain religious persuasion were required to identify themselves by wearing markers on their clothing so that everyone could know who they were. We know how that turned out…
This pair left a huge arsenal behind. It seems clear they were planning on multiple attacks…OR they planned on recruiting others and launching a multi-person attack at some later time and the attack on the employee party may have been an impulsive act (pure speculation on my part).
Financing for the arsenal is being investigated. Some say they had to have terrorist backing because there was so much there, he couldn’t have paid for it on his salary. I wonder about that. The big guns were bought in 2011 and 2012 by a former neighbor. How much does a used assault rifle cost?
That has been debunked and that is why it is no longer even a story.
The suggestion was raised not by the candidate, but by a reporter. I suggest you find the story and read the transcript of it - I have - and the candidate in his responses never mentioned Muslims or a database and repeatedly mentioned people in general coming in illegally and a wall at the border would stop that.
The reporter asked what the candidate thought of that idea of a Muslim database. Note: it was the reporter who brought up the topic and the idea. The candidate never posited that suggestion.
The candidate replied about building a wall and making sure people get here legally and a few other measures that vet people to make sure they are legal. The candidate's answer did not include the reporter's original premise of a Muslim database - the candidate never mentioned or repeated the database suggestion raised by the reporter, and talked solely about stopping people from coming in illegally.
After the candidate gave his standard list of things he has been saying all along about illegal immigration, the reporter asked a general followup question - "Is that something you would do?'
The candidate said, "Yes that is something I would implement because it would make sure people get in this country **legally.** Note - a Muslim database has nothing to do with illegal immigration, so clearly the candidate and the reporter were talking two different things.
The candidate was clearly responding to the list of things he mentioned about what he would do about illegal immigration, not to the reporter's original question. The candidate's responses were all stump responses about illegal immigration and a wall, not some Muslim database.
That was some real shady reporting all started by a suggestion of a slim database by the reporter, not the candidate.
I would not normally defend this candidate, but it was shady reporting and a setup. There are enough truly offensive things he has said without having to make things up.
Please note that the link refutes your original post that the candidate suggested this Muslim database.
I love the idea of what is considered confusion - even in this article linked to it is the reporters and only the reporters who keep mentioning a Muslim database. The presidential hopeful never mentions a Muslim database. It is shady 101.
All this link shows is that the journalists do not like his answer for they had one pat answer in mind and would accept nothing else.
But what is really ridiculous is that our current government already has a Muslim-related database - there is an official database of radical Muslim suspected terrorists and terrorist sympathizers who are under surveillance by the FBI right now. So, there already is a Muslim-related database, but it is really stupid to then say because a candidate does not specifically say “all Muslims” in an answer that he is for database of all Muslims. That is just silly.
This is journalists trying to create a story instead of following one.
There was apparently a proposal to have a database for all Syrian refugees, and a suggestion that one be made for Muslims… per the link above (candidate’s name removed) :
Imagine that reporting on what that person says, or doesn’t say, is like trying to follow the bouncing hairpiece.
I think a lot of this has to do with Trump’s speech patterns, but a lot also is due to the nature of live interviews as opposed to questions in writing or the candidate penning a statement. Trump answers “not al all” I think to the phrase “all Muslims” when the question was “ruling out” so that “no not at all” seems contradictory to what he wants to say.
This happens to all candidates and news media favoring both sides of the aisle feed the confusion and take advantage of it.