Australia didn't ban all guns, after Port Arthur they banned the ridiculously overpowered armament that no sane person should feel a need to own unless he is in combat.
Full disclosure: I favor a complete repeal of the second amendment, with gun ownership granted only on demonstrated need and with conditions such as regular proof of saf…
Australia didn't ban all guns, after Port Arthur they banned the ridiculously overpowered armament that no sane person should feel a need to own unless he is in combat.
Full disclosure: I favor a complete repeal of the second amendment, with gun ownership granted only on demonstrated need and with conditions such as regular proof of safe storage and continued possession. "Demonstrated need" as, for example, living in a high crime neighborhood or being particularly vulnerable to theft, e.g. operating a jewelry store. And explicitly not including "I enjoy killing animals," something I see as extremely sick.
Don't get me wrong; I fully understand the absolute political infeasibility of this repeal, but then I was saying the same about same-sex marriage thirty years ago and it is now the law of the land (my partner and I were married in 2017). The fetishizing of guns, the perception pf gun ownership as the foundation of identity, ridiculous notions that stocking up at Wade's is a deterrent tyranny ... all these stand in opposition (never mind that a lot of the same people would enthusiastically support a tyrant who hated the right people).
I live in a country where guns are illegal, only the cops have them, and people here don't cower in fear at a traffic stop and the cops don't demand you let them at your dog so they can kill it.
I have never owned a gun; I borrowed one for three days once and couldn't stand having it around. When someone tried to rob me at gunpoint I defused it by laughing that I was a college student and broke.
But I grew up in the south, I have met a lot of gun fetishists, and I can't stand them.
Oh, about that infeasibility .. even the most fervently-held attitudes can change incrementally and then they hit a tipping point and they collapse. I've been waiting most of my life for the near-daily massacres to move the needle, and it's not moving.
Then again I've been awaiting a national revulsion against background music and that hasn't happened either, even as the music has gotten so horribly worse.
Australia didn't ban all guns, after Port Arthur they banned the ridiculously overpowered armament that no sane person should feel a need to own unless he is in combat.
Full disclosure: I favor a complete repeal of the second amendment, with gun ownership granted only on demonstrated need and with conditions such as regular proof of safe storage and continued possession. "Demonstrated need" as, for example, living in a high crime neighborhood or being particularly vulnerable to theft, e.g. operating a jewelry store. And explicitly not including "I enjoy killing animals," something I see as extremely sick.
Don't get me wrong; I fully understand the absolute political infeasibility of this repeal, but then I was saying the same about same-sex marriage thirty years ago and it is now the law of the land (my partner and I were married in 2017). The fetishizing of guns, the perception pf gun ownership as the foundation of identity, ridiculous notions that stocking up at Wade's is a deterrent tyranny ... all these stand in opposition (never mind that a lot of the same people would enthusiastically support a tyrant who hated the right people).
I live in a country where guns are illegal, only the cops have them, and people here don't cower in fear at a traffic stop and the cops don't demand you let them at your dog so they can kill it.
I have never owned a gun; I borrowed one for three days once and couldn't stand having it around. When someone tried to rob me at gunpoint I defused it by laughing that I was a college student and broke.
But I grew up in the south, I have met a lot of gun fetishists, and I can't stand them.
Oh, about that infeasibility .. even the most fervently-held attitudes can change incrementally and then they hit a tipping point and they collapse. I've been waiting most of my life for the near-daily massacres to move the needle, and it's not moving.
Then again I've been awaiting a national revulsion against background music and that hasn't happened either, even as the music has gotten so horribly worse.