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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (41403)	11/19/2005 4:20:29 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

"what is beneficial about banning the manufacture or sale of "assault weapons"?" There are many benefits. The first that comes to mind is the safety of law enforcement personnel in the performance of their duties. They should not need to carry the equivalent of all possible force on their persons as they go about their efforts to keep you safe from criminal elements. Although I appreciate the right of all people to self defense, there is an assumption and a citizen's contract with society that we will leave the enforcement of the law to a rational and accountable enforcement system. For good reasons, it is undesirable that private citizens (without objective training in the law) should attempt to take the law into their own hands. If you are being threatened by people with nuclear bombs and your winchester 30-30, 303, and your dozen war guns seem inadequate to your defense--you really oughta call the cops. If you only want to hunt a deer--you don't need a grenade launcher. When people (such as terrorists) are allowed by law to arm to the point where they are a threat to law enforcement--then you are in danger of losing the protection of your life, liberty, and property. So yes, I think there are benefits in regulating ownership of assault weapons just as there are benefits in regulating the purchase of arsenic or the purchase of uranium. Arming yourself to the point where you threaten the safety of others to a compelling degree is not a sacred right. Society determines reasonable limits on behavior--and reasonable restrictions on owning and carrying dangerous weapons.