Comment Re:My results differed (Score 1) 34
Thank you very much for your thoughtful, detailed, and nuanced answer.
Likewise. I can never fully explain how frustrating it is to try to debate with someone whose argument essentially boils down to "nuh uh" or, worse, can't hold a civil conversation. I can respect people who disagree with me but are at least willing to talk, even if we'll never convince each other that we're correct.
Please forgive me, as I'm going to reorder your comments a bit to make them easier to respond to:
We seemed to have crossed over that threshold a long time ago, (especially in the age of Glocks). It seems like once we went past revolvers to Glocks was that time, or at least the next level, to me anyway. Recently I've been watching the TV show called Boardwalk Empire which takes place between about 1910 and 1926-ish. It's a violent show, and they try to recreate the era. Their guns don't compare to our guns, for sure.
The Colt model 1911 was introduced in 1911. It's a
The Glock 17's primary innovation was its polymer frame and striker firing mechanism (though these likely existed before then). If you're looking for "9mm handgun with lots of rounds in the magazine" you can go as far back as the 1890s with the Broomhandle Mauser.
Your reading of The Constitution seems overly broad.
Why so? What's the "correct" reading? How do you square that with "a well regulated militia?" The implication of said well regulated militia (e.g. a well trained, well equipped body of men that can be called upon for the common defense) is that their equipment would be substantially similar to the average infrantryman--automatic rifle, hand grenades, the whole shebang. At the time the 2nd amendment came around, people personally owned artillery, even armed ships. Personally! How then, can you say "well, no, the second amendment really doesn't contemplate the level of destruction that we can inflict today (WMDs not withstanding).
With all due respects, where do we as a society draw the line between lethality and user interface of weapons?
This is a fair question. I don't see anything wrong with semi-automatic weapons in civilian hands. You obviously disagree with this, and I can respect your position, but I don't see how you square that with the constitution. While I'm opposed to the objective, I certainly support your right to try to change the constitution and I respect people who choose to follow that route to gun control. We disagree, but we both respect the law.
I am less concerned with such regulations such as background checks at this point, in the era of trying to distinguish differences between bump stocks and full-on machine guns. I wish we could draw a line, and dial it way back.
Here's the rub: You can't go back. It's too late. The genie is already out of the bottle, and nothing you can do will change that--in fact, things can (and will) certainly grow even more complicated. 3D printing will continue to improve. How long until fully automatic weapons can be made completely on such an apparatus? Already they're churning out switch kits for semi automatic pistols to turn them into machine guns.
Even ignoring that, though, there are more guns than people in this country. If you banned them all today, and had a tremendously optimistic compliance rate (say 80%) there would still be something like 80,000,000 firearms remaining in circulation. It would take you decades, even centuries for them all to go away. All of them, in such a world, would be in the hands of people who, by definition, do not respect the law. I don't want to live in a world where "bad people" have a monopoly on force, and I am forced to submit to their whims or die.