Originally Posted by
no1son
I do not see the need to ban private ownership of firearms whether for sport shooting, hunting or for self protection. I also do not see the problem with licensing each one for particular purposes nor for limiting magazine or clip capacity in part depending on the use intended. The government already knows who has most of the non-criminal firearms in this country and by any kind of sophisticated public Internet search can actually identify who has purchased or received what for modification with that giving grounds for ATF search warrants simply on that basis. Anybody with a conceal/carry permit is automatically identifiable.
I do not see the big deal over permanent semi-automatic guns either, like the so called assault rifles. All they really are is nothing more than a modified copy of military weapons that are designed to be rugged, accurate and dependable, the same qualities that would make them good choices for private purchases. I do have a very big problem with large capacity clips and conversion kits that change them to automatic fire. There is no need for them in any private issue, they are banned for hunting already in nearly every state, and are actually in the way for most pure target shooting.
Most importantly however is that there are some individuals in this country who should not under any circumstances have access to firearms, but sorting them out from the rest of us with legitimate purposes is going to be a very difficult task. Most of the damage those persons cause come from a small group of mostly adolescent and young men who are both the most common violators and the most common victims, with the worst cases generally being suicides planned to have dramatic impacts on innocent strangers.
That's where I would start to deal with gun crime, and those have to be caught ahead of time, since the worst of them are already planning not to be taken alive in the first place; so penalties for commission are irrelevant to them. Guns are already the prime tool in most suicides anyway, whether or not someone else is killed first.