While the gun nuts are busy equating any attempt at better regulating firearms to an attempt to ban all guns, I have been busy pondering the most absurd reasons for folks to own firearms or an unnecessary type or amount of firearms.
Is it reasonable to want to be able to hunt? Sure. But do you want me to believe that it's necessary to have 30 bullets to kill 1 animal?
Is it reasonable to want to be able to defend yourself? Sure, but you don't need enough firepower to blow the ass off of a small country to do it. And it is worth considering that your guns that are intended for "defense" are more likely to result in your death or the death of your family members than to ever "defend" anyone or anything.
I don't really want to get into the folks that have guns because they think there will be an apocalypse or a world financial collapse or some other scenario resulting in the collapse of our civilization. If things are bad enough that everyone and their brother needs to walk around with an assault rifle then I think I would prefer not to survive the apocalypse.
Follow me across the jump for my new thoughts.
But more to the point I have had a realization about another group of folks. Time and time again I hear a certain group of people say that the second amendment is intended to allow folks to protect themselves from the government. It is a shield from tyranny? Does anyone really believe that a scrappy band of angry old white men with assault rifles would stand a chance against the immense destructive power of the government? We are talking tanks, planes, drones, some of the best troops in the world- just to name a few of the government's assets. To call what would ensue a massacre of angry old white men would be too kind. Or would our law enforcement and intelligence agencies ever allow it to get that far? I doubt it.
They actually do believe that their firearm allows them to have a check on the government. Not through directly fighting to overthrow our tyrannical government as part of a well regulated militia...
These particular men are acquiring arsenals to support their assassination fantasies. In their head they play out this scenario over and over in which they save our country from tyranny by killing our president, by killing our elected officials because they disagree with the results of an election. The types of weapons that could be legally acquired via second amendment rights will never be powerful enough to result in the overthrow of our government, but these weapons are perfect for assassination. That is what their "second amendment protection from tyranny" and "second amendment remedies" have always been about.