You didn’t read the article you linked to, did you?
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Well, at least freedom to associate with whoever they don’t consider “terrorists”…
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I posted the wrong link. I apologized.
First rate explanation.
Personally, I can see no circumstances under which I would want to own one of these.
But I do not believe that any non-criminal* adult American should be prohibited from doing so.
- “criminal” in this context = “someone who has committed a violent crime or used a gun in connection with committing a crime”. Holding a lawn sale without a permit doesn’t count.
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You can’t advocate against the draft either. Not when American boys are fighting the Kaiser.
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Thank you, this is extremely helpful and informative.
It is my personal opinion that no private citizen, regardless of criminal record, should be allowed to own a firearm such as this. If they need to clear rodents off of their property, there’s other ways to do so that don’t involve a weapon that has the capability of massacring a large group of people.
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Seconded.
Even in America, they don’t let civilians buy anti-aircraft missiles, for reasons that are extremely fucking obvious. When balancing mass public slaughter vs indulging the fetishes of hoplophiles, opting for public safety isn’t a hard call to make.
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That’s not so bad, in and of itself. The problem is that the private citizen, civilians, members of the public are the ultimate authority in a democracy. So if they should not have some particular weapon, it goes without saying that nobody else should have it either.
What people usually propose - instead of actually ceasing the production of weapons - is the formalization of a class-based society. Where “nobody should have them” functions as code for “a select few will have them”. The safety of myself and/or my family are not worth the problems caused by creating a privileged class of people to defend us from ourselves or each other. My benchmark for civilized society is that the same rules apply to all people who participate in it. Controlling the access to weapons rather than their production would only serve to institutionalize violence and inequality in other less direct ways. And this process of institutionalizing it I think is ultimately far more harmful to society.
And Omar Mateen, with his associate degree in criminal justice technology, clean background check, Florida security officer license, and active employment with a Federal security contractor, fell squarely into the privileged class.
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That’s not what I’m saying, no. I’m saying nobody should have them. They should not be available for purchase at any price at any store to anybody. Not to a privileged class, nor a select few.
I’m not naive – I’m aware that if someone’s determined to do something horrible, they’ll get ahold of weapons on the black market, buy from another state, or make a bomb out of a pressure cooker. But I think preventing someone like Omar from being able to buy an AR-15 in less than seven minutes makes the possibility of a spur-of-the-moment anger-fueled killing spree that much less possible.
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