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Originally Posted by DelayedReaction
If you're going to debate what should be banned, then you should know the difference between the classifications. Suggesting that allowing citizens to own small arms would lead to people demanding nuclear proliferation at Wal*Mart is spurious at best. Junk legislation like the AWB does nothing.
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I'm not debating what should or should not be banned. I'm debating whether anything should be placed into a category that is banned. If I were debating a specific gun, then yes - I would need to know the technical details of how that gun operates in comparison to others. But my point is that there are many different types of guns. Some are more deadly/dangerous than others. There is a whole spectrum of projectile weapons - from little derringers to AK47s to RPGs all the way up to nuclear missles. Lines must be drawn to classify those weapons and some of those classifications should be unavailable to more then 99.9% of the population.
The question is - where do you draw the line? But you seem to be arguing that there should be no lines at all and that the only obstacle is one of time and/or licensing because of "freedom".
There are probably a good number of reasons that freedom is not an acceptable reason to have access to dangerous weapons. You may really really want an RPG and you may have no criminal past, but if you're allowed to have one, we are now assuming that you won't go mad and use it to take out an airplane full of people because your bitch of an ex-wife is on board. Or you are unable to guard the RPG and someone who is not licensed steals it from you and commits a criminal act with it. What good reason could you provide for the necessity of having such a weapon that would alleviate the potential for the weapon to be used for a criminal activity? Freedom is not a practical reason, it is an ideal.
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The purpose of gun control is (supposedly) to prevent crime by making it difficult for criminals to obtain guns. The problem is that it fails to do that; if it were true then Washington DC would be the safest city in America. All we're doing is preventing law abiding citizens from defending themselves.
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Ideally, I support less gun control vs. more gun control (mainly because I agree with Michael Moore's theory that a fear culture and not access to guns is the primary cause of the inflated U.S. murder rates. Blaming guns is denial of the real problem.). But there has to be limitations. All weapons should not be freely obtainable (even with time/licensing delays).
The key is for both sides to sit down and rationally discuss the issue. Right now it seems like one side is saying "all or almost all guns should be banned" and the other is saying "all or almost all guns should be available to the people". Some guns have no purpose in the hands of most people other than their desire. Desire is not good enough. On the other hand, guns are not the cause of gun deaths - shooting someone is the cause of a gun death. Somewhere in the imperfect middle is where we should be aiming (pun intended).