2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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This is a good article explaining why we need the AR-15...
Assault Weapons: An Emergency Bulwark against Tyranny | National Review
The right of self-defense is best understood as a right of effective self-defense, and the tools for effective self-defense will evolve right along with weapon design and development. Any other conclusion leads to absurd results. Consequently, as the Supreme Court held, the amendment protects weapons “in common use at the time.”
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This means that if gun-control measures “freeze” the nature and types of guns that are lawful for civilian use, even as broader gun development proceeds apace, there will be an ever-widening gap between the capacity of a criminal to do harm and law-abiding citizens’ ability to protect themselves from that harm. It will also lead to such a yawning gap between citizen and state that private gun ownership no longer provides any meaningful deterrent to tyranny.
And this brings us to the two favorite targets of those who argue for so-called commonsense gun control — assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. While the term “assault weapon” is vague, we’ll define it as a semi-automatic rifle with cosmetic features similar to military weapons. They’re typically paired with high-capacity magazines. In fact, an “assault weapon” without a high-capacity magazine is little more than a menacing-looking hunting rifle.
There are millions of assault weapons in America. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the nation. There are tens of millions of high-capacity magazines, and they’re extraordinarily easy to make. Both are unquestionably in “common use.”
This means that the foreseeable criminal threat to you or your family comes from a person wielding — at the very least — a semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity magazine. This is one reason that police typically don’t carry revolvers. Their own weapons of choice have evolved to deal with the threat, and — as my colleague Charlie Cooke is fond of noting — if a person doesn’t “need” a high-capacity magazine to defend himself, then why do the police use them?
If I use an AR-15 for home defense, then I possess firepower that matches or likely exceeds (given how rarely rifles are used in gun crimes) that of any likely home intruder. Limit the size of the magazine to, say, ten rounds, and you’ve placed the law-abiding homeowner at a disadvantage. Prohibit them from obtaining a compact, easy-to-use, highly accurate carbine, and you’ve ensured that homeowners will be defending themselves with less accurate weapons. The best weapons “in common use” would be reserved for criminals.
Moreover, an assault-weapon ban (along with a ban on high-capacity magazines) would gut the concept of an armed citizenry as a final, emergency bulwark against tyranny. No credible person doubts that the combination of a reliable semiautomatic rifle and a large-capacity magazine is far more potent than a revolver, bolt-action rifle, or pump-action shotgun. A free citizen armed with an assault rifle is more formidable than a free citizen armed only with a pistol. A population armed with assault rifles is more formidable than a population armed with less lethal weapons.
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Rather, for the Second Amendment to remain a meaningful check on state power, citizens must be able to possess the kinds and categories of weapons that can at least deter state overreach, that would make true authoritarianism too costly to attempt.
As Justice Scalia ably articulated in Heller, the Second Amendment was designed to protect what Blackstone called “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.” Without access to the weapons in common use in our time, the law-abiding citizen will grow increasingly — and intolerably — vulnerable to the lawless. Thus, to properly defend life and liberty, access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity.
Assault Weapons: An Emergency Bulwark against Tyranny | National Review
The right of self-defense is best understood as a right of effective self-defense, and the tools for effective self-defense will evolve right along with weapon design and development. Any other conclusion leads to absurd results. Consequently, as the Supreme Court held, the amendment protects weapons “in common use at the time.”
-----
This means that if gun-control measures “freeze” the nature and types of guns that are lawful for civilian use, even as broader gun development proceeds apace, there will be an ever-widening gap between the capacity of a criminal to do harm and law-abiding citizens’ ability to protect themselves from that harm. It will also lead to such a yawning gap between citizen and state that private gun ownership no longer provides any meaningful deterrent to tyranny.
And this brings us to the two favorite targets of those who argue for so-called commonsense gun control — assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. While the term “assault weapon” is vague, we’ll define it as a semi-automatic rifle with cosmetic features similar to military weapons. They’re typically paired with high-capacity magazines. In fact, an “assault weapon” without a high-capacity magazine is little more than a menacing-looking hunting rifle.
There are millions of assault weapons in America. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the nation. There are tens of millions of high-capacity magazines, and they’re extraordinarily easy to make. Both are unquestionably in “common use.”
This means that the foreseeable criminal threat to you or your family comes from a person wielding — at the very least — a semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity magazine. This is one reason that police typically don’t carry revolvers. Their own weapons of choice have evolved to deal with the threat, and — as my colleague Charlie Cooke is fond of noting — if a person doesn’t “need” a high-capacity magazine to defend himself, then why do the police use them?
If I use an AR-15 for home defense, then I possess firepower that matches or likely exceeds (given how rarely rifles are used in gun crimes) that of any likely home intruder. Limit the size of the magazine to, say, ten rounds, and you’ve placed the law-abiding homeowner at a disadvantage. Prohibit them from obtaining a compact, easy-to-use, highly accurate carbine, and you’ve ensured that homeowners will be defending themselves with less accurate weapons. The best weapons “in common use” would be reserved for criminals.
Moreover, an assault-weapon ban (along with a ban on high-capacity magazines) would gut the concept of an armed citizenry as a final, emergency bulwark against tyranny. No credible person doubts that the combination of a reliable semiautomatic rifle and a large-capacity magazine is far more potent than a revolver, bolt-action rifle, or pump-action shotgun. A free citizen armed with an assault rifle is more formidable than a free citizen armed only with a pistol. A population armed with assault rifles is more formidable than a population armed with less lethal weapons.
----
Rather, for the Second Amendment to remain a meaningful check on state power, citizens must be able to possess the kinds and categories of weapons that can at least deter state overreach, that would make true authoritarianism too costly to attempt.
As Justice Scalia ably articulated in Heller, the Second Amendment was designed to protect what Blackstone called “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.” Without access to the weapons in common use in our time, the law-abiding citizen will grow increasingly — and intolerably — vulnerable to the lawless. Thus, to properly defend life and liberty, access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity.
There will be uploads of Apaches and AC-130’s toying with you on youtube. Unless... does the second amendment let you buy an AC-130 with its armaments? Hmm.
