Horrific Newtown, CT school shooting

[joeydb]

Originally Posted by Dahoss

Let's look at this specific situation. If this douchebag's mother didn't have the weapons in her home, would he have been able to pull off this hideous act? Maybe. Although by most accounts he could barely function around people, so it would have made it a lot more difficult.

Which is the entire point. Let's try and make it harder for people to commit these acts, by limiting (or denying) access to weapons that people have no business owning. Of course people might still be able to get them by illegal means, but it won't be so easy.

Why would anyone not in the military need a military style assault rifle? I've asked and asked and no one seems to be able to muster up an answer other than to say "because I can."

Brilliant.

In a free society, purchases with one's own money don't have to be driven by need, or your assessment of another's needs. "Want" is enough. Much of our economy, everything from sports cars to iPads is driven by preferences and capitalism. So your opinion (not picking on you - anybody's opinion) of what someone chooses to buy is irrelevant. And with 99.999% of people who buy "assault" rifles not hurting anybody, reacting to ban them seems like punishment to the law-abiding enthusiast.

As you point out, this nutjob didn't buy the weapon himself. He took his mom's weapons. But once you make the step to something like "If person A didn't have the guns, person B wouldn't have been able to commit the crime", it's unenforcable short of bans and confiscation on everybody.

Even then, criminals, by virtue of the very status conveyed by that word, don't follow rules or laws. Therefore, as the oft-repeated but true cliche' goes, "If you criminalize guns, then only criminals will have them." - not counting the police who always have to show up AFTER a crime has occurred or started.