Question

[patrice]

49. Public v. Private is the focus of the question. Your guns your home, that's your business, NOT ours.

Your guns in our public places that's a different sort of question, because many of us do not want to be pulled into violent situations that we were not even allowed, to whatever extent possible, the choice options afforded us in the 2nd Amendment having to do with "the security of a free State", in which we happen to live with others who have made choices counter to our own security and my/our choices are prevented by concealed carry.

The PUBLIC question about the security of a free state also extends to the uses of our armed forces. This applies to limited types of guns suitable for assault.

I can't imagine what kinds of situations might provoke assault from a privately armed position upon public domain, other than criminal activity, but under some other circumstances perhaps there could be some situations in which private assaults public, for whatever reason, and "justified" or not, such rationale and such hypothetical activities would result in the use of public resources, armed forces, to respond upon to private assault upon public. This hypothetical possibility is the point at which I, as a member of the public, do have a right to mitigate against the effect upon public resources, not only in whatever the object of the private assault upon public is, but also in the effect of that assault upon a public human resource known as law enforcement and/or military, both of whom at minimum must expend financial resources to respond to private assault on public, and at worst, suffer injury and death, effects upon people who have committed themselves to public service, so we have responsibility for what happens to them, and so also, why we should accept our responsibilities to respond to the possibilities of private assault upon the public in any form of its public resources.

Now, we should consider the reciprocal hypothetical scenario: public assault upon private. I know that there are examples in our history that reveal people's concerns for how this can and has happened, I cannot deny that possibility, but I believe that history would also show that in most such incidents, alternative forms of public response to private actions were not explored, though that leaves aside the questions of whether whatever alternatives there were their potentiality were mitigated or prevented, intentionally or otherwise, so the question of whether there are/were alternatives to public assault on private is a moot point. Let's just leave this point that there are likely alternative responses to public assault on private. I don't accept that public entities unilaterally assault private entities out of the clear blue, but I do accept that there are probably alternatives that, for one reason or another, intentionally or otherwise, are not pursued.

One hypothetical scenario I have left out is: private assault upon private. This is an important possibility because it is directly germane to the question of certain kinds of information being made public as illustrate by the story that prompted this thread. If the factor representing privately owned assault capabilities says, TTE, "Public has no concern of assault from this private assault power, because ___________________ " they could be accepted at their word, unless that "... because __________________ " is broken , again intentionally or otherwise, and the nullification of that "because" could come from factors internal to the private assault potentiated domain, in which case public could be considered responsible to protect private assault from private assault, for the security of a free State, or the nullification of that "because" could also come, intentionally or otherwise, from public assault potentiated factors external to the private domain.

In any case: private assault upon public, or public assault on private, or private assault on private, we end up once again and again in the position of the use of public resources, with or without m/your consent, BECAUSE of the inherent reciprocity of assault capabilities.

I'm okay about people owning guns in the privacy of their homes. That private information about a private context should not be shared. When any gun become a factor in any public domain, that affects the rest of us and assault weapons have the potential of becoming such factors in ways that are not characteristic of other types of guns. In any case: private assault upon public, or public assault on private, or private assault on private, we end up again and again in the position of using of public resources, with or without m/your consent, BECAUSE of the inherent reciprocity of assault capabilities, all of which are beyond the control of most of those who can be affected by the, intentional or otherwise, use of assault weapons by ANY assault potentiated element in any situation.