[Vision2020] Gun Talk

[Joe Campbell]

Paul writes: When I mentioned the superficial differences between an AR15
and a mini 14 that makes the latter not fall under the "assault weapon"
nomenclature, your suggestion was to ban mini 14's too.  So, I don't know
how I ever got it into my head that you were for the banning of assault
weapons.  Oh, and you haven't responded to my apparently invisible response
to your "no one has the right to do wrong" idea.  That was namely that if
you have the right in the first place, then it's up to the law to determine
the bounds of it.  You don't have the right to libel me, but the fact that
you libeled me can only be determined after it has happened.  Preemptively
removing my right to post to an Internet forum because someone somewhere
libeled someone is not anymore justified than banning a type of gun because
someone somewhere committed a massacre with one.

Two points. First, I never suggested banning anything. I said we should
consider it. That is the difference between our positions. I think we CAN
consider banning anything; you seem to think rights are special gifts from
God that allow us to act like idiots while we sit back quietly unable to do
anything. You have a radical view of rights.

Look if your slippery-slope argument works, so does mine. If the two things
are similar and we CAN ban one, then we can ban the other; if the two
things are similar and we shouldn't ban one, then we shouldn't ban the
other. The arguments are of equal strength. That was the point I was making.

Also, the second argument you give above is VERY bad. It is like saying the
state can't prevent people from driving drunk because, well, how the heck
can we know whether or not their behavior is going to cause any harm? But
of course we can prevent people from driving drunk because there is a
potential for harm. Likewise, it is the POTENTIAL for harm that my libelous
comments carry with them, not the actual harm, that allows the government
to restrict my speech in that case. After all, maybe my libelous comments
won't cause you harm? Who's to say? Thankfully the government doesn't have
to wait around to find out before it is able to restrict one's speech.

All that is relevant when it comes to considerations of restricting
behavior is potential level of harm. Unfortunately for your radical
position, mere gun ownership increases the possibility of harm (at least in
small towns with low levels of violence like our town). Again, I'm offering
this as an argument for banning guns; I'm offering it as an argument
against your radical view of rights, aka the NRA view.
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