Why would anyone need an assault weapon?

[The Annoyed Man]

ilovetabasco, I appreciate where you are coming from. Both Kythas and AEA pointedly addressed the fact that the Constitution is not "needs based," and rights are not constrained by need—particularly someone else's definition of "my need." Needs-based thinking is collectivist, and the Constitution is pointedly ANTI-collectivist, so any definition which seeks to couch arguments in terms of need is automatically in violation of the spirit of the Constitution, if not its specific wording. At the end of my post, I'll give you some links which may either give you more cartridges for your "hi-cap" magazine of ideas, or which you may give to your friends to read.

But, here are some starting points:

Argument: The Founders could not have conceived of modern "assault rifles" and machine guns!
Answer: First of all, Thomas Jefferson might easily have understood one had he had the chance to see it. He was an inventor. And in fact, in the late 18th and early 19th century, there were inventors who were already working on repeating arms designs, and the "pepper pot" pistol was already in existence. The Bill of Rights is not constrained by technologies. The Founders could not have conceived of the Internet or cable television either, and yet many of the voices which call for infringing upon the 2nd Amendment jealously guard their 1st Amendment right to speech in both media. They would instantly cry "FOUL!" (and they have done so in the past) anytime someone tries to pass a law limiting their speech on Internet or TV.

Argument: Yes, but even though technology does not limit the Constitution, you can't shout "FIRE!" in a theater!
Answer: Actually, yes you CAN shout "FIRE!" in a theater......if there actually IS a fire. That old red-herring isn't about the choice of words, it is about the responsible use of words. The firearms analog would be: you can't shoot your gun inside city limits.........unless of course you are using it in self-defense or defense of another. The constraint against discharging a firearm only applies to the frivolous, but it does not disallow responsible use.

Argument: But....but....NOBODY needs a 30 round magazine to go hunting!
Answer:

1. Actually, you're mostly (but not entirely) right. And when I go hunting, I tend to take either a 10 round or 20 round magazine.......unless I'm hunting hogs, in which case I bring along about ten 30 round magazines and curse myself for not having brought more along. But that is irrelevant. The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting, which is a free-standing right apart from the right to keep and bear arms, nor is it about self-defense, which is an ancient right recognized by common law for centuries before this continent was ever colonized, even for centuries before firearms became available to the common man. 30 round magazines are not "high-capacity" (a term invented by liberal media), they are standard capacity.
2. Even so, "need" does not determine the applicability or the free exercise of an enumerated right. The Constitution assumes that you are a sovereign citizen with guaranteed rights, which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and which are generally described in other documents (life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, etc.). You have no more right or authority to limit my magazine capacity than I have authority or right to limit how many words you can use in a paragraph. In other words, your desire to define and limit my needs does not carry the same weight as my sovereign authority to determine and exercise my needs.
3. Needs-based thinking is collectivist thinking. It is the justification for all the different forms of socialism, and it is the antithesis of every standard upon which the nation is founded. The Constitution does not limit the individual; it limits government. Collectivist thinking is the opposite of that, and it is the pathway to tyranny. As Karl Marx said, "the goal of socialism is communism."

Argument: The AR15 is not a hunting rifle!
Answer: Actually, the very first time I ever went deer hunting, the guy who brought me along took a doe with an AR15—one shot, clean kill, fired from a 20 round magazine. Just because the magazine will hold 20 rounds, it does not follow that its user will FIRE 20 rounds! A very large part of this type of limited thinking is nothing more than psychological projection, and it comes from people who do not trust themselves. You might as well argue that nobody needs a Ferrari to commute in because it will exceed the national speed limit (as will a SmartCar). But all of that said, you are right in one regard, it was not originally designed for hunting. However, there is not a single hunting rifle in use today that was not adapted from a military rifle and used for hunting purposes. ALL bolt action rifles owe their heritage to military rifles. Lever action rifles used to be military rifles. Muskets used to be military rifles. There are literally no examples at all of hunting rifles which do not have at least their early technological origins in military use. Why should the AR15 be held to a different standard than ALL OTHER hunting rifles? And by the way, do you hunt, and how much do you actually know about hunting?

Argument: But the wide availability of "assault weapons" means that people can kill on impulse, and in large numbers!
Answer: Cost/Benefit analyses in gun-control are fundamentally immoral. The fact that these firearms are used in a tiny tiny tiny number of overall homicides (see FBI statistics directly from the horse's mouth) does not negate the fact that they are ALSO used between 700,000 and 2.5 million times a year (depending on whose statistics you're looking at) to STOP a crime or murder. By your argument, you would sacrifice the 700,000 to 2.5 million in favor of the 26. The lives of those 26 are not insignificant and their killing is a tragedy, but in comparison to the lives and safety of millions, it is statistically insignificant, and disarming the millions is an immoral alternative.

I could go on, but you get the point. Here are some resources:

• "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" (http://constitution.org/mil/embar2nd.htm), written by UT Austin School of Law professor and ACLU member Stanford Levinson, reprinted from the Yale Law Review
• "Why Liberals Should Love The Second Amendment" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/04/2 ... -Amendment), written by Kaili Joy Gray, a Daily Kos blogger. Daily Kos is a hard far left liberal website dominated by the fever swamp.
• "With Gun Control, Cost Benefit Analysis Is Amoral" (http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswa ... is-amoral/), by Forbes.com contributor Harry Binswanger.
• "The American Revolution against British Gun Control" (http://www.davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/amer ... ntrol.html), by Dave Kopel, Research Director, Independence Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Advanced Constitutional Law, Denver University, Sturm College of Law, adapted from his paper titled "How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution."
• "FBI Expanded Homicide Data Table 11" (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cr ... a-table-11), the actual statistics compiled by the FBI for the year 2011, minus any spin from the gun-grabbers OR the anarchists.

(EDITED TO ADD THE LINK TO THE FBI STATISTICS, WHICH I FORGOT TO INCLUDE IN THE ORIGINAL SUBMISSSION)

[Reds45ACP]

I agree with what has been posted. I often use the car example. The response I always get is: "Yeah, but a car wasn't designed to kill people." What response do you give to that?

[packa45]

Holy wall of text TAM... But I completely agree!

[VMI77]

I don't "need" an AR-15. I bought one because I wanted one and I legally could.

I don't "need" 30 round mags. I bought 20 because I wanted 20 and I legally could.

I don't "need" 1000 rounds of ammo. I bought 1000 rounds because I wanted it and I legally could.

I don't "need" the CompM4 red dot sight that the Military uses. I bought one because I wanted it and I legally could.

I don't "need" a bayonet fitted to my AR. I bought 2 because I wanted them and I legally could. (to freak out the Libs) :

What I DO NEED is for FOOLS to stop INFRINGING on my Constitutional RIGHTS!

You don't need those things? I do "need" them. My wife and I are the sole arbiters of what we need. If I decide I "need" a 30 round mag then I do need it, and no liberal wacko is going to change it.

[The Annoyed Man]

I agree with what has been posted. I often use the car example. The response I always get is: "Yeah, but a car wasn't designed to kill people." What response do you give to that?

More people are killed by cars every day than with guns.........especially children.

[VMI77]

Great first post. Lots of good arguments there. But here is my take.

Ask them why would anyone need a sports car (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porshe, etc). Those are high performance cars designed to travel at high rates of speed, well above speed limits in the US. Would they approve to have those automobiles be declared illegal and force people to turn them in or go to jail?

Ask them why anyone needs a 10-20 bedroom mansion costing millions of dollars. A large amount of energy (heating, cooling, water for the large lawns) is used to maintain those houses. Energy created by burning fossil fuels that cause global warming. (Not the I believe on man-made global warming theories, but usually the antis do). Should the government force people that own those mansions to house homeless people in their spare bedrooms? Or to put minimum limits of say 2 people per bedroom so than when your kids move out of your 2-3-4 bedroom house, you are forced to sell your house and you and your wife be forced to live in a one bedroom condo, or be forced to take in guests to fill up the empty rooms. As a further benefit that would help solve the housing crisis. There would be housing for everyone. No more homeless people. Common sense approach.

If Lansa had used his mother's automobile to run down those kids as they were exiting the school, would they be calling for the confiscation of that particular make and model of automobile or automobiles altogether. After all, why do you need a car. There are buses, trains, taxis you can use. There is no right for you to own an automobile. Not to mention the supposed environmental benefits discussed above.

You see the point. But the most important thing you can say is that the 2nd Amendment is part of the Bill of Right not part of the Bill of Needs. There are million of owners of these "assault weapons" in the US who legally bought their weapons because they legally could, whether they felt a need or a want, who have no intention of ever going into a school and murdering kids with their "assault weapons".

The only problem with those questions is that the answers depend on if that particular liberal has: 1) a fast car; 2) a big house. We have a saying in my industry: an environmentalist is a liberal who already has his house at the beach. The Sierra Club rep I know has a big ole' SUV. It's a "hybrid" SUV but if he's so concerned about the environment, how come he doesn't drive a Prius? Liberalism contains a lot of envy. So, if you ask a liberal with a fast car if fast cars should be banned, he'll say no. If you ask a liberal with a Chevy Volt, he may well say yes. If the liberal with the fast car lives in a small house or apartment and you ask him why people need mansions he may well say they don't, and agree that they should have to take in homeless people.

Liberals consider themselves to be superior beings, morally and intellectually, so, whatever they want must be good by definition, and therefore needed. Whatever they don't want, while not necessarily bad, certainly is not needed by anyone else.

[K.Mooneyham]

TAM, the Founding Fathers were indeed some highly intelligent folks who had a knack for looking to the future, even if they couldn't understand technologically how a thing could be done. I recently came across this quote in a book about WWII paratroopers...

Where is the Prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds may not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?---Benjamin Franklin

[GeekwithaGun]

Great first post and welcome to the forum.

Something that I was thinking about this morning and having all these arguments and counter arguments about the "need" to own a gun or even the "need" for gun control is that whether someone is killed by a car or a bullet there is a common demoninator - the person.

So I say - ban the person, the person is what causes all the mayhem with whatever object they choose to use.

[Kythas]

I agree with what has been posted. I often use the car example. The response I always get is: "Yeah, but a car wasn't designed to kill people." What response do you give to that?

A gun is absolutely designed to kill people, which is what makes it such an excellent choice for self defense. The mere production of an item designed to take a life by a person defending himself will, almost always, cause the attacker to end or otherwise disengage their attack. In a case where the attacker is armed, then it's only right and proper for the defender to be similarly armed for self defense.

The people who use the line of reasoning that a gun is designed to kill people almost never think in terms of self defense. They always see the person with the gun as the aggressor because, to them, any sane person has no need or desire to be armed and only criminals use guns.

[The Annoyed Man]

Interesting quote.

Here's the bottom line..... I have yet to see ANY arguments in this country in favor of banning/limiting/infringing firearm ownership that was based in anything OTHER than emotion. The only arguments I've ever seen in favor of restricting or eliminating firearm ownership came from the naked display of raw power by dictators and fascists/socialists/communists. I have NEVER seen an argument for these things from anybody who values personal liberty as a general principle. They may value it for themselves, but not for others, and this is because they think of themselves as better than others on some level or other. Gun control is, on its face and deep in its bones, the province of elitists who think collectively, and have no regard for the individual.

As Suzanna Gratia Hupp famously said, "How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."

[ilovetabasco]

Thank you all for the thoughtful replies. I can say that I agree with most everything that has been posted. The question of the need for “assault rifles” is clearly loaded, but unfortunately it seems to be effective against those who don’t view the Second as an inalienable right.

RHenriksen: Excellent points! I believe the strategy you suggest would probably prove highly effective against many of my acquaintances. I’ll also grab a copy of that book.

The Annoyed Man: the way that you listed common attacks are efficiently disarmed them is exactly the sort of resource I have been looking for. I suppose I expected the NRA or other similar group had such a resource, but everything I have found to date has been rather disappointing (either incomplete or too narrowly focused). I’ve added your links to my reading list.

Reds45ACP: That is exactly why I didn't bring up cars in my response. Of course, it’s a red herring rooted in emotion rather than logic (or our inalienable rights), but it’s effective. That is exactly why I believe there should a resource that not only offers well thought out responses to these attacks, but also some well-crafted, emotionally charged attacks that can put us back on the offensive.

Canvasbck: I couldn't agree more – the gun control advocates rely heavily on emotion, partially because they have to, but also because it’s highly effective with certain demographics. I also agree with the ideas presented to use emotion to our advantage, and I would love to see many more ideas like this one, especially ones that I can use when debating those I expect respond better to emotion than logic.

[LSUTiger]

Why do we need “assault weapons and high capacity magazines?

The term “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazine is something the Government and Gun Control crowd has made up to demonize guns of a particular category with a particular reason in mind. That reason is simply because it’s the technology of the day that our police and military use and many others throughout the world to keep peace, order and also control.
Gun Control is not about Guns, it’s about Control.

The 2nd Amendment advocates should not use gun control terminology and refer to “arms” in an inappropriate manner that is only meant to negatively stigmatize those “arms”.

We should use terms that more appropriately describe what they are like simply “semi-automatic rifles” or use terms that describe the reason we need them and the 2nd Amendment like “Freedom Rifles.” We should call 30rd magazines “standard magazines” because 30rds is the standard magazine size for many semi-automatic rifles (AR/AK). So we should refer to these “arms” as “semi-automatic rifles” with “standard magazines” because they are standard small arms.

The Revolutionist‘s were armed with the same technology as their oppressors and had a strong will to overcome them. This made victory possible.
At the time of the revolution they used the “arms” technology of the day which was cannons for artillery and muskets for rifleman. All firearms were black powder, loaded one shot at a time. It was the same technology that the British possessed. This leveled the battlefield and is what gave a bunch of rag tag colonist the ability to overcome, at the time, the world’s mightiest army. I don’t think stick and stones would have had the same effect.
The 2nd Amendment doesn’t specify which “arms” we have the right to bear for at least a couple of reasons. The first is much like the reason we almost didn’t have a bill of rights. Some of the founding fathers did not want to leave any right out so that it could later be argued that only a certain type of rights were protected. The same is true of what kind and how many “arms” we could bear. Another reason is that they had no idea of what kind of technology would be developed in the future and did not want to limit “arms” to the technology of the day.

It is imperative that the Armed Citizenry have at least the same technology as the Government and Police. If not, then it is much more difficult to defend against tyranny and a police state.

But another thing to consider is that criminals by definition are people who do not obey the law. They will not cease to use any type of weapon that will give them an advantage in committing their crimes.

So to use anything less than the technology and standard weapons of the day put law abiding citizenry at a disadvantage to defend themselves from tyranny and from criminals.

Today’s technology makes small arms irrelavent

Wrong. Time and time again, in conflicts worldwide, it is proven that freedom fighting forces armed with small arms like semi-automatic rifle and standard capacity magazines often have great success against the most technologically advanced militaries.

At the end of the day, a person standing on a piece of ground with a gun in hand owns that piece of ground until he is removed and another person with a gun in hand overcomes him and stands in his place. Infantry is the backbone of any army. Wars cannot be won with technology alone. The biggest force in the world is perhaps the armed Citizenry of the USA.

Also, don’t rule out that members of our Armed Forces and Law Enforcement are Citizens too! Most will not bring to bear the might of deadly technology on their own people. They value freedom and liberty as much as the civilian population and are sworn to protect and uphold the constitution not some hell bent misguided evil politicians or the president. Most will side with the people.

Enslavement will be achieved by those with guns who are against us.
Freedom will was gained and will be preserved by those with guns who are for us.

[mojo84]

It doesn't matter what it was designed for. A Lambo is designed to break the law.

[JJVP]

I agree with what has been posted. I often use the car example. The response I always get is: "Yeah, but a car wasn't designed to kill people." What response do you give to that?

OK, so the Assault Weapon were designed for only one thing to shoot large number of people with those " large capacity" magazines. I guess that the police don't need them either. So the police, most of which have "assault weapons" with "large capacity" magazines in their patrol cars, only have them so they can go and mow down a lot of people, right? The police are not military, so why do they need military weapons, to wage war on the citizens? A lot of police not only have these department issued weapons, but also buy them for themselves. Because they enjoy shooting them, not because they are ready to kill everyone in sight.

There are millions of gun owners that own one or more of these so called "assault, military style" weapons that had never and will never use them to murder people. If what the libs say is true, that those weapons have only one purpose only, to shoot and kill a lot of people, then there would be no one left alive today, because the millions of law abiding gun owners are NOT walking into school or malls and killing everyone in sight. Just because one deranged individual used on to commit a heinous crime does not make the rest of us criminals.

But having said all that and everything everyone here and elsewhere has said, it really won't change the minds of the hardcore liberals. No matter how many stats, data and rational thought you can provide them, they are governed by emotion and not logic. Nothing we can say will change what they "feel".

[Wes]

Cars might not have been designed to kill but alas people are killed by cars being driven by irresponsible, negligent, or otherwise incapacitated people. Just because they weren't created for that purpose, does it make them any less deadly? If cars did not go faster than say 30 mph, there would be a lot less death at the hands of people behind the wheel wouldn't there? Should we limit all cars to this speed? If I said yes, people would be outraged but where does it guarantee a person the right to own and operate an automobile in the constitution? Nowhere, but it does guarantee our right to keep and bear arms, ie a gun. It doesn't say just this gun or that one, just like it doesn't say you can worship god but not aliens. All speech is protected, all religions are protected, and all guns are protected. Stop taking away my rights, period, and don't spend my money to find ways to take away this right.