Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM 2008 ON GUN CONTROL [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)1. Where do you think criminals get their illegal guns? From people who have them legally, that's where. Cut back on the numbers of legal guns and it will be harder for criminals to get guns. That's a tough job in a country like ours which is flooded with guns -- legal and illegal -- already.
2. One of my problems with gun laws is that a lot of people are prohibited from having them. Let's say we agree that mentally ill people should not have guns. But, who is more vulnerable to an assault than a mentally ill person walking the streets alone? Who is more like to to be shot and robbed than that person?
As we have seen with Trayvon Martin, underaged kids are unlikely to have guns. So are they to face a man with a weapon with their hands and fists because of their age? What if Trayvon had been younger and the man with the gun had been a predator?
Regardless of the laws, we need to create a society in which guns are for shooting animals, war and the police -- not for ordinary citizens' shooting other ordinary citizens. They shouldn't even be needed for self-defense. That's a cultural issue. We pay a very high price for this paranoid culture we have created.