Do we really need an Assault Weapon Ban?

[krispos42]

19. Exactly the problem

It's like terrorism. We're allowed to have a moral panic over the issue, to thump our chests and foolishly pronounce "never again!" and pass all kinds of laws and such, but we're not allowed to say "hey, they're attacking us because we support oppressive and brutal Middle Eastern governments as long as they keep the oil flowing".

So rather than spend $300 billion a year for a few years on getting off the fucking oil permanently, we spend that $300 billion decade after decade after decade on otherwise-unneeded military equipment and actions. But you can't mention that fact, because then you're a fucking terrorist-loving, America-hating traitor. Nobody listens to you, you get kicked off of any major media platform, and the opposite side feeds off of your downfall like a vampire.


Well, same shit, different topic.

A big chunk of deaths are directly or indirectly related to the illegal drug trade or use. But rather than address that issue, the politicians (almost all of them Democrats) are telling me that sorry, either we have to ban semiautomatic rifles fed from detachable magazines IF and ONLY IF they have certain exterior features, or we have to accept a brain-dead, arbitrary limit on magazine capacities. FUTURE magazine capacities, with nothing being done about the hundreds of millions of already-existing ≥11 magazines out there.


It's complete and utter bullshit.


I don't know if you saw this, but our mass-murder rate is trending downwards, starting from the mid 70's.





And in the 70's, the tactical rifle wasn't popular and handguns rarely had double-stack magazines. Ammo wasn't as good, either.

Somehow, despite the proliferation of handguns with double-stack magazines and tactical semiautomatic rifles, the mass-murder rate (whether you consider it to be 4+ or 5+) is trending downwards.

And yet, there's a crisis that we need to make PROCLAMATIONS ABOUT and TAKE ACTION ON. So, hey, we have the term already, "assault weapon", so let's just flog that pony and hope nobody notices that we're vilifying a gun used in maybe 250 homicides a year because we don't want to, you know, actually do anything.

Universal single payer healthcare would lower the homicide rate. Legalizing recreational drugs would lower the homicide rate. Not only would they lower the homicide rate, there would be many, incalculable positive benefits to pretty much everybody.

Lower prison spending. Better overall physical and mental health for everybody from infants to the elderly. Making small businesses more prosperous. Freeing innovators from the health-insurance shackles of corporate employment. Hemp products replacing wood, cotton, corn, pharmaceutical, and petroleum products. Less murder, abuse, and violence. Less "police state" activities like SWAT raids and financial reporting and police stops and fingerprinting & DNA databases.

But, we can't have that. So we have to panic about hardware instead.