Repeal or Heavily Amend All Gun Laws?

[EvilBetty]

This is all hypothetical. This is an attempt to create a conversation and learn from the views of others.

/DISCLAIMER

So I've been of the belief for a while that every gun law that I could find since 1932 is illegal, has had no great benefit for Americans, and should all be repealed.

I think repealing most of these laws would cause ZERO rise gun related crime.

But have recently been doing some reading up the the NFA. I don't believe it deserves much of the credit for curtailing gangs in big cities. I understand it may have been used with some limited success to bust supporting characters supplying these guns to gangs. I think though even without the NFA, the changes that came with better arming the police and the FBI better had much more to do with stopping the gang activity.

So what if we got rid of the NFA? What if we could now walk into any gun store and buy a machine gun?

One of the other reasons the NFA came when it did was more people could afford buy a machine gun. Today if machine guns were legalized they would plummet in price to the same as AR-15's and semi-auto variants of fully automatic and select fire weapons. Hell may of us would simply convert our current weapons. So now anyone who really really wants to buy a machine gun, can.

My biggest fear with this would be an incident that makes Sandy Hook pale in comparison. More specifically my fear would be that an act like that would popularize gun-control to levels never seen before.

I'm not going to go all Dick Metcalf here. I'm just curious what others think the possible future without these gun laws would look like in our current society.

It's extremely rare for a violent crime to occur with a rifle, not to mention an AR-15 or other modern semi-auto.

It's even more rare for a violent crime to occur with an TITLE 2 weapon, even before FOPA86. Before NFA34, I don't have the stats.

But even with the GCA68, hand gun crime is fairly common. I would say this law, more than any other, has done NOTHING to combat gun related crime. (Including most of code 478.x and what was 922(r). )


So... my questions are:

Would you keep ANY of the current federal laws or part of the current laws?

Would you replace any current federal law with a "better" law?

Do you think having any personal arm, made freely available to any american citizen would be catastrophic? Completely a non-event? Or somewhere in between?

 

[bigmoneylewis]

Well, we know gun laws are not implimented to control crime, but instead to disarm you and I . In fact, gun control actually increases violent crime rates. That happens because criminals..well, they like to engage in things like "criminal activity" . Armed robbery, assault, rape ,
home invasions , things like that . The thing about criminals is that they tend to downright ignore those
gun laws in most cases , if you can believe that.
In fact, they get real excited with the idea that in a gun ban area, no homeowner or potential rape victim will be armed.
They kick doors open , rape your wife and daughter, steal your weedwacker and your 27" flat screen with an extra wide grin on their face, because they know "YOU ain't got no gun "

Now , the next subject , how much firepower should the average responsible citizen be allowed to posses ?
A highly debatable subject indeed .
Their are limits of course . I think anything "small arms" is within reason , even high capacity magazines of course .
I don't even have a problem with the average guy owning
a "Chicago typewritter"
A cruise missle , no I don't think that is appropriate for the average joe.
A sherman tank or a full auto .50 cal ?Then it becomes a grey areaI could see the argument either way on that .

Lewis

 

[jlrhiner]

Paper Patriot here,

I've always been of the opinion that if you trust me with a flintlock, you can trust me with an automatic rifle. My level of responsibility does not change. (I also like cannons).

The "carnage in the street" argument doesn't hold water. Remember the negative ads prior to most states adopting conceal and carry. Scare tactics used to sway those that didn't know any better or where slightly disposed to oppose these laws.

There are in excess of 20,000 state and federal gun laws on the books. If someone commits murder, why do they also need to be charged with possession of a deadly weapon, use of to commit a crime, discharging a firearm in public, possession of ammunition, possession of a firearm with intent to commit a crime, etc. Being charged with murder should be sufficient.

I think firearms laws, and a great part of criminal laws should be thrown out and started over.

I think I'll go write a letter.

 

[EvilBetty]

Well, we know gun laws are not implimented to control crime, but instead to disarm you and I . In fact, gun control actually increases violent crime rates. That happens because criminals..well, they like to engage in things like "criminal activity" . Armed robbery, assault, rape ,
home invasions , things like that . The thing about criminals is that they tend to downright ignore those
gun laws in most cases , if you can believe that.
In fact, they get real excited with the idea that in a gun ban area, no homeowner or potential rape victim will be armed.
They kick doors open , rape your wife and daughter, steal your weedwacker and your 27" flat screen with an extra wide grin on their face, because they know "YOU ain't got no gun "

Now , the next subject , how much firepower should the average responsible citizen be allowed to posses ?
A highly debatable subject indeed .
Their are limits of course . I think anything "small arms" is within reason , even high capacity magazines of course .
I don't even have a problem with the average guy owning
a "Chicago typewritter"
A cruise missle , no I don't think that is appropriate for the average joe.
A sherman tank or a full auto .50 cal ?Then it becomes a grey areaI could see the argument either way on that .

Lewis

I disagree with some of this.

If our police and military can have it, so should the citizens.

Does that mean we can have a canon, a tank, or a armed aircraft? Yes it does. Plenty of private citizens held the same munitions as the militia and standing armies when 2A was drafted. Canons in the front yard were common, and not as 4th of July spectacles as they are now for the few that have them. Gatling guns were available if you could afford one (and still are today)

Does that mean we should have access to drones, countermeasures, and the same level of NV and IR, yes it does.

But that is where the my discussion above comes into play. We should have these devices, but we also want to be safe from others that may use them to harm us.

What alternative ways could we do that? Large community militia groups? Community formed private police forces? Just spitballing here... thoughts?

 

[davew357]

...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Think that says it pretty well.