Letter to Uncle T: Guns, 2nd Amend. & VA Tech

On 4/18 I responded to Uncle T.:

Look, in my conservative days I used to worry about that, too, but... I'll take my chances with a homegrown Hitler, with over 80 deaths a day from firearms. Anyway, our military is becoming so sophisticated and heavily armed nowadays, that if the U.S. Gov't really wanted to oppress its citizens, we would have a hard time stopping them, even if we were all armed to the teeth. (Look at Waco and David Koresh: they didn't stand a chance.) If you follow your argument to its logical conclusion, then you should advocate a continual "arms race" between citizens on the one hand, and the government on the other, so that government can never be too strong to oppress the people. If you really believe that's what gun ownership is for, then you should advocate the people's right to own bazookas, tanks, fighter jets, and small nuclear weapons, in case we ever need them to fight a tyrannical USG.

Basically, the "What if King George comes back?" argument brings up a really unlikely possibility, when the likelier results of gun ownership (daily murder, suicide) are real and actual. You've got to play the percentages and do what's best for the most people in the long run.

That crazy kid at VA Tech would not have been able to kill 33 people that day without guns, period. In no other country do they have these shooting rampage attacks on a weekly basis, only in America, the only place where it's so easy to get guns & ammo. The connection is obvious. It's not a knee-jerk reaction, it's a logical, common sense reaction. To stop gun killings, take away the guns. If this kid had used radioactive polonium to poison his fellow students (like that guy Litvinenko in London), your logical reaction would be: We need to restrict access to polonium, because it's so dangerous in the wrong hands. Guns are not any different. They're just too dangerous.

Finally, keep in mind that their purpose is to kill -- unlike other things which we license, like cars, boats, etc. Killing is what guns are made for, and that's what they do.

On 04/18 Uncle T. wrote to me:

Okay, if there is gun control and you have an authoritative, arrogant, closed minded President, like Bush, and whose Administration wants to empower the Republican party forever, who is in control of all military forces, and there is no possibility of resistance as the people have no guns, how do you stop such a person. No its not the 18th century but recent history of Hitler, Tiananmen Square, Kent State, Rodney King shows the fallacy of gun control and giving the govt absolute power. The only reason that you consider gun control is that the 2nd Amendment has worked so well over the last 200 + years that you now take it for granted and assume that no one in govt, in the US, will abuse power. Surely, you don’t believe that no one in govt abuses power.

The best solution is to treat guns like automobiles and require serial numbers, titles and licenses, with prior training for ownership.

P.S. Outlawing guns for civilians will just require those who have an evil intent to just change their methods, Just like terrorists have changed their methods the more different military maneuvers have been able stop them. Legislation has never stopped evil.

Outlawing gun ownership is a feel-good, knee jerk reaction to evil but, in practice, new legislation would accomplish nothing as the method of the evil doer will just change.