Pro gun arguments

[badtoworse]

103. Here are some cases that come to mind

What was Richard Daley's response following McDonald? Did he and the City Council pass laws that respected the spirit of the SCOTUS decision and provided Chicago citizens with reasonable access to a means of self defense? The answer is no. The city's response was to ban gunshops so there would be no place to buy a handgun. They also required extensive training, but banned ranges within the city so there would be no place to actually get training within the city limits. Those laws and other aspects of Illinois law (such as a complete ban on CCW) are still being fought in the courts. Gun violence in Chicago is among the worst in the nation, yet the city remains intent on depriving its citizens the ability to defend themselves that is guaranteed as a civil right. To me, that indicates a lack of trust in their own law abiding citizens and smacks of paranoia. IIRC, Washington D.C.'s response wasn't much better.

How about the concerted efforts in the late 90's and early 2000's by various cities to sue gun manufacturers under every imaginable legal theory? Gun manufacturers were producing a legal product and complying with all legal requirements regarding their sale, but were forced to spend millions to defend lawsuits aimed at third party, criminal misuse of their product. I'm not aware of any other legal product that had to deal with that. Auto manufacturers were never sued when drunk drivers killed people on the highways. The purpose of the lawsuits was to either bankrupt the gun manufacturers or drive their legal costs to the point where they could not afford to sell their products at a reasonable price. IOW, to drive them out of business. What's the problem here - the gun control crowd too paranoid to trust the issue to the legislatures? Gun control folks scream about the the NRA's influence in Congress, but we should just accept abuse of the courts by the gun control side.

How about the legislative response to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act? The purpose of that law was to protect lawful manufacturers from being bankrupted by frivolous lawsuits. Seems reasonable to me, but it was vehemently opposed by the gun control crowd and numerous legislators voted against it. They would apparently been quite happy to see the domestic firearms either driven out of business or rendered incapable of selling firearms to the public. Were they paranoid about the response from the gun control side? How should an RKBA supporter view their votes on that law?

How about Diane Feinstein's comments following passage of the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994? Feinstein said on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, February 5, 1995, "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here". She's not paranoid about law abiding citizens owning modern firearms? I shouldn't be paranoid when a powerful senator makes a statement like that?

How about the Attorney General, Eric Holder's amicus brief in the Heller case? He argued that the 2nd Amendment does not protect an individual right. OK, this isn't really paranoia on his part, but I shouldn't be concerned when the Attorney General goes on record with that position?

I could keep looking, but it's getting late. When I look at stuff like, my gut tells me that the people in question cannot be trusted on the issue. If that's paranoia to you, so be it. To me, it's just prudence.