Stealth Hunter |
04-04-09 04:15 PM |
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Originally Posted by Platapus
(Post 1077878)
No, these guys were criminals. They were committing illegal acts. No one has the right to commit an illegal act; hence the illegality of the act.
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But what were they using to commit the illegal act? Automatic assault weapons. If they'd not been able to obtain these guns in the first place, that day would have ended quite differently.
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So no they were not exercising a right, they were committing a crime. The two are mutually exclusive.
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They had the right to own assault rifles in the first place. And insodoing, they had the ability to commit multiple crimes with them.
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Please note that there is a difference between law abiding citizens and criminals. Even though both may possess a specific type of firearm, they are completely different people.
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That difference is what's difficult to distinguish, however. The debate comes down to should we ban assault weapons entirely and drastically reduce the risk of their misuse by the people (note that this does not mean it will be completely eliminated), or should we allow the people to keep them but as a consequence allow the risks to still remain with high potential to be unleashed by a certain portion of these very same people?
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What is a law-abiding citizen going to do with an Assault weapon (as defined by the 1994 act)? Any legal action they wish to do with it.
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But there's plenty of problems and risks with allowing them to own assault weapons, which is what this is all about. Criminals always start out as these citizens. You, me, and plenty of other people know this. Distinguishing them apart in the first place is impossible, hence it's not wise to try and tackle the situation from that perspective.
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In our form of government, the citizen does not have to justify actions, it is up to the government to justify the restriction of actions = freedom.
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And the justification here is the reduction of violent crimes against the faithful people of the country, moreso the reduction of the potential of violent crimes to occur in the first place.
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In free societies, it is not a good idea to preemptively restrict activities because of the possibility (no matter how slim) of a future illegal action.
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I suppose the same applies for no matter how great the risk may be, right?
The simple fact of the matter is that people can have every right to bear arms. I'm not saying they shouldn't; neither is the current administration (or Clinton's, for that matter). What we're saying as a whole is that there are just some arms that people shouldn't be allowed to bear because of the great risk that comes with them. I actually have no problem with a person owning an automatic weapon or an assault weapon, so long as they have been modified so they cannot fire a shot by a certified official.
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