Reply to Please gun supporters - explain to me once and for all why you need an automatic weapon

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It would really help my soul to see some reasonable gun enthusiasts weigh in.  I wish they demanded accountability in weapon use as thoroughly as they demand exacting terminology.[/quote]

Well, I'm a gun "moderate", and I've tried.  I don't own a gun, but enjoy shooting (last time was about three years ago).  I also have family/friends who [i]are[/i] gun people and rely upon hunting for food and utilize guns for home defense.

I'm in favor of a number of additional restrictions on firearm ownership/use and have articulated those throughout the discussion, as have a number of others.  I've also agreed with others' proposals.

It's hard to have this discussion, though, when people are suggesting regulations that (a) demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge of firearms, and (b) therefore, would not succeed in making people safer.  This isn't an attempt to play games with terminology--it's an attempt to clarify basic facts that everyone should know (and think about) before opining about solutions.  Uninformed, hysterical opinions aren't going to advance the cause.

[/quote]

+1.  I've been trying to do the same, only to get heated rhetoric back.  If people could try to get a baseline understanding of where things stand today and avoid name-calling, I think we would be engaging in a much more fruitful discussion.

As for "accountability in weapon use," the issue is that parties who live to be arrested are punished for using a gun that they have illegally - that accountability check is in place in addition to the standard criminal charges attendant to the underlying crime.  It is telling that there are around 270 million civilian firearms in America, but usually somewhere around 30,000-35,000 gun deaths, around 2/3 of which are suicides.

When radical people of all creeds are willing to die, however, there can be no [u]personal[/u] accountability with respect to "use" of the weapon.  Nevertheless, I think most gun owners would be willing to permit safeguards that are not implicitly designed as a first step toward eliminating gun ownership in the U.S.  For example, I think most/all can agree that background checks should be needed for sales outside of one's family, that people with certain diagnosed mental illnesses should not have a gun, and that the Orlando shooter who had been investigated for terror threats going back many years shouldn't have gotten a gun "legally."

(And no, I don't own a gun or want one in my house.) [/quote]

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