Dave likes to bring up his childhood and guns. And he wonders what has changed since then. My childhood was similar. I was raised in a small(ish) town in East Texas. Lots of people hunted and had guns. My father liked to hunt in his younger days, my mom experienced a bad event when she was a child and forbade guns in the house else we likely would have had a rifle. But, my grandparents lived on a farm and had a couple of rifles, so I did go shooting on occasion. And there was no shortage of BB and pellet guns.
But guns were treated differently. They were tools with certain uses. Except for a small minority, protection from other people was not one of the uses that would even occur to most. And they worked security or were traveling salesmen who often carried large sums of cash. That is different now. Despite crime being at the lowest level, if not lower, since those days, there are people who get a gun for protection. Guns have also been raised to some sort of totem, as an early ad for the AR-15 put it, "here is your man card".
Now, guns are seen as protection. Despite having one in your house makes you 3 times more likely to die of gun violence. Usually by your own hand, but also by a family member. And that is also despite the fact that the odds of being a victim of violence is at a very low point, and the probability of that is still declining.
As to your question, making semi-automatics highly restricted would have little impact. Other than engaging in mass killings, the zombie apocalypse and highly contrived scenarios like "imagine a dozen or so blah people, hopped up on bath salts, break into your house, intent on killing your family", it would make no difference. |
