Dec
20
2006
Another case of blame the gun and not the criminal
Posted by Erebus in Nanny State, PoliticalThe mayor of New Bedford MA wants the AR-15 rifle banned nationwide because he thinks that private citizens should not have the right to have such a weapon. Apparently he has never consulted The Constitution of the United States. Mayor Scott Lang is quoted in a Boston Herald article as saying:
There’s no rhyme or reason to have civilians with this type of firepower,” Lang said. “It’s not something that you could ever possibly justify. It’s insanity and it doesn’t fit in society in any way.”
Let me give you one reason mayor. Because we want them and the 2nd amendment guarantees we should have them. The Constitution is not about need. Absolutely no where does it say that freedom is about needs. It’s not insane that I want to have a rifle that is fun to shoot. It fits in society just fine as there are tons of these rifles in circulation and there are VERY few incidents of them being used in crimes. How about the way that I go to the range and make holes in paper? Or do you object to that too because I don’t need to do it. It amazes me how lawmakers love to take away freedoms they think you don’t need. Freedom isn’t about need it’s about want. I want to do something and if it doesn’t hurt someone else I should have the right to do it. But these people think that if they think you don’t need to do it they have every right to take that right or freedom away from you.
His objection to civilians owning this rifle is its appearance. It resembles the M-16 rifle and uses the same ammunition. The similarity ends there. Lots of rifles use that same ammunition. It’s one of the most common. And don’t let appearances deceive you. They are quite different. The M-16 is a full auto rifle; the AR-15 is not. It is semi automatic. In other words, one pull of the trigger, one round fires. So all the scary phrases like "sprayed" or "blasted" make no sense at all. Any semi auto magazine or tube fed rifle (and there are lots of them) would fire at the same rate, one round at a time.
At the end of the day this Mayor wants to blame an inanimate object that is incapable of action on its own instead of the person that picked it up, loaded it, pointed it at another human being, and pulled the trigger. I suppose if someone got in a car, started it, pointed it at a human being, and ran them down he would be calling for a ban on that model car? No I didn’t think so.
Entries (RSS)