U.S. House kills gun proposal

[merphie]

No, the notion of gun ownership is not intellectually bankrupt. The notion that you have rights to own a weapon is intellectually bankrupt.

Just like any other right. Including Free speech.

You're rights include what the government says it does.

 

[merphie]

Absolutely not. I am very focused on the question: Where is the line drawn between handguns and bazookas?

Easy. The law says so. A bazooka, silencer, and fully automatic weapons fall under a certain tax law. You have to have a federal firearms license and a class 3 tax stamp to own one legally.

 

[Skeptic]

Larsen's position, in my view, is highly amusing.

Larsen's insistence that guns which "can be used for sniping" (or something else he considers "illegitimate") should be banned because no law-abiding citizen would "really" need them would leave the law-abiding only with the ability to buy single-load, deliberately inaccurate, heavy cr@p guns.

After all, why would a law-abiding person need a particulatly accurate gun? Or need to fire many shots in successions? Or need to have a weapon hidden? Or... and so on.

Of course, gun manufacturers do not (deliberately, anyway) make guns which are inherently inaccurate, slow to fire, difficult to hide, and all those other wonderful qualities that Larsen appears to think are so important for "law-abiding" guns. So in effect his objection, if treated logically, is to say that law-abiding citizens are should not be allowed to own guns--or at least not good guns.

I am reminded of France's defense secretary, at Versailles, objection to the idea that Germany should be allowed "defensive weapons": "whether a weapon is offensive or defensive depends on which side of it you're standing."

Grammaton & others replying to Larsen are looking at guns from the law-abiding owner's side of the gun: they seem them, quite rightly, as defensive in essence even if (God forbid) they have such awful qualities as accurate or repeated fire capability.

Larsen is looking at the same guns from the other side of the barrel and for this reason considers the gun essentially offensive... that is, he looks at the gun from the would-be robber or rapist's point of view.

 

[CFLarsen]

Easy. The law says so. A bazooka, silencer, and fully automatic weapons fall under a certain tax law. You have to have a federal firearms license and a class 3 tax stamp to own one legally.

So, it has nothing to do with freedoms, but how the government decides to tax.

Interesting.

 

[merphie]

So, it has nothing to do with freedoms, but how the government decides to tax.

Interesting.

Huh? Where did you get that from? What I said is how it is today, not what I believe.

 

[CFLarsen]

Huh? Where did you get that from? What I said is how it is today, not what I believe.

That's what I was saying.

Remind me, where in the Constitution does it say anything about the right to own firearms is determined by tax laws?

 

[merphie]

That's what I was saying.

Remind me, where in the Constitution does it say anything about the right to own firearms is determined by tax laws?

It doesn't. However that is the way it is. Why are you asking me? I didn't write the law.

 

[Ranb]

It's not a question of whether you would pay for it.

The question is: Do you have the right to own them?

This is an old thread, but I forgot to provide an answer to CFLarsen's question.

In the USA, since there are no laws banning bazookas, we can own them. And until there are laws banning civilian ownership, I guess I can say I have a right to own one. Here is where I can buy one. http://www.autoweapons.com/products/destructivedevices.html

I have to use an AFT form 4 and pay the $200 tax to transfer it to my name. I can also build one after paying the $200 tax and receiving an approved ATF form 1. If I can settle for bazooka rockets with inert warheads, then I can avoid paying the $200 tax for each rocket. Otherwise, if I want to blow up cars at the rifle range as suggested above,then the ATF gets $200 richer for each round.

Ranb

 

[Skeptic]

Can a .50 calibre rifle bring down a jet airliner? If it can, isn't defeating this ban kind of dumb? What is a .50-calibre rifle good for and why would a civilian need one?

You miss the point. The point is that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, a right that doesn't depend on whether someone else thinks it's a good idea or not, or whether they think you really need it or not.

Apart from being uppity and condenscending--"I know better than you what firearms you really need" (despite the fact that you, naturally, have absolutely no knowledge or experience with weapons)--the more serious problem with the "you don't really need that right" argument is that it's typical of totalitarian regimes.

In the old USSR, for example, people didn't really need the right to vote for the opposition since the wonderful and perfect communist party was already in power, so things couldn't possibly be improved.