Calvin Warner, a student journalist (although not a journalism student) at Oklahoma State University believes than an assault weapon ban is just plain common sense. The young skull full of much asks, “How many more tragedies need to happen before the United States joins the modern world in banning assault weapons?” You know Cal, just because โ€œeverybody elseโ€ is doing something doesnโ€™t make it a good idea. Didn’t your mother ever ask you, โ€œIf everybody was jumping off a cliff, would you jump too?โ€ . . .

What does Cal consider an โ€œassault weaponโ€? He’s happy to spell it out for us.

There is no reason anyone needs to be able to own a rapid-fire weapon capable of killing dozens of people. Weapons for self-defense and for hunting are one thing, but weapons made for the battlefield have no place in peopleโ€™s homes.

I never said he’d give us a precise definition (which is a big part of the problem with all these proposed โ€œassault weaponโ€ bans). Indeed, like so many others, his definition is vague enough to cover virtually all modern metallic cartridge weapons. I also wonder if he includes cops in โ€œanyoneโ€ because an awful lot of PDs across the country stock โ€œbattlefieldโ€ weapons in their armories now. To say nothing of the fact that just about any weapon ever built has been used on the battlefield at least a time or two.

And as for not needing such weapons for self-defense, tell that to the inhabitants ofย L.A.โ€™s Koreatownย or post-Katrina New Orleans, or to homeowners facing 3 or 4 home invaders, or to anyone living in one of the rapidly increasing number of cities where budget problems have forced police to cut back on crime response.

The Second Amendment was written in a time before semi-automatics. Banning assault weapons is a common-sense way to curb gun violence in America, and I donโ€™t think anyone will feel that their rights are being seriously trampled on.

First of all Cal, you donโ€™t get to choose how I feel about my natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil and Constitutional rights. Second, by your very phrasing you acknowledge that such a ban would be an infringement upon something which the Constitution (you know, the highest law of the land?) states shall not be infringed. Third, even if I accepted the validity of your social utility argument, it just isnโ€™t true. As Emily Miller points out in her July 23rd column in The Washington Times:

The most recentย FBIย figures show just 358 of the 8,775 murders by firearm in 2010 involved rifles of any type. By comparison, 745 people were beaten to death with only hands that year, but no one has called for outlawing fists.

Fourth, your โ€œsemi-autos didnโ€™t exist back thenโ€ argument is as silly as it is spurious. Automobiles, telephones, Reform Judaism, Mormonism, computers, the Internet . . . none of them existed โ€œback thenโ€ but no one seriously suggests that they’re not covered by the Bill of Rights. In fact the inclusion of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 (the copyright and patent clause) in the Constitution shows that the Founders did anticipate there would be innovation and invention in the US and sought to encourage it.

And fifth, attempting to implement a gun ban would hardly be conducive to reducing โ€œgun violence.โ€ You see Cal, there are a bunch of us out here who might be called the ‘cold dead hands’ types. What you may not realize is that this isn’t just bumper-sticker hyperbole. There are people who actually feel that way. We use this statement to convey our willingness to die in defense of our civil rights.

The flip side is that it implies a willingness to kill for those rights as well. This is a topic David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh have both touched on fairly often. Since the vast majority of liberals and statists don’t have principles they’d be willing to die for, they are unable to conceive that there are men and women who do hold their principles that dear. This is one reason Mike gives for his essays and fiction, an attempt to warn people like you who ignorantly believe we are as craven as you are.

Letโ€™s treat this as a philosophical mathematical exercise, shall we? According to a Gallup poll taken last October (2011), 47% of households report having a gun in their home (or on their property). Taking a S.W.A.G., let’s say 47% of the population between 20 and 65 are gun owners. According to Wikipedia, our population in 2012 is about 314,188,000 with 27.3% of that number under 20 and 12.8% over 65 leaving us with 59.9% of 314 million or about 188 million of an age to bear arms. 47% of that number is 55.46 million.

It’s generally accepted that between three and five percent of the population fought on the rebel side of the American Revolution (although some sources put it as high as 40%); so if we go with the low end and say that 3% of that gun-owning 55-odd million would be willing to take part in a new American Civil War. This leaves us with 1.66 million cold dead hands types.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010 there were 794,300 LEOs on the job. Hmmm, 794 divided by 1660 . . . carry the nine . . . 0.47 cops per CDH type. This assumes, of course, that every cop would be willing to violate the Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens and judging by the growth of the Oath Keepers, I donโ€™t see that happening.

Cal continues:

After the Dunblane massacre in the United Kingdom in 1996, the British government quickly responded with the Firearms Act of 1997, banning most small arms weapons throughout the country.

Actually it was after the Hungerford massacre (August of 1987, 16 dead, 15 wounded) that the first Firearms Act (of 1988) was passed in order to prevent future massacres. Next came the Monkseaton shootings in April of 1989 (not called a massacre because only 1 person died (but 14 were wounded)). Then there was the Dunblane massacre (March 1996, 17 dead, 15 wounded) leading to the banning of handguns, in order to prevent future massacres. Then came the Cumbria massacre (June of 2010, 12 dead, 11 injured). Do we see a pattern here, Cal?

So given that the UK has the highest violent crime rate in the EU, Iโ€™m not sure I’d use them as a shining example of successful gun control.

How will our government respond to the Aurora, Colo., massacre in July? Reports indicate that the gunman bought his ammunition anonymously online. Surely we can at least agree that it should be illegal to anonymously purchase machine gun ammunition over the Internet without having to pass any kind of background check.

First of all, if he bought it anonymously how do we know that he bought it at all? In fact there’s nothing at all anonymous about online ammo orders; even if you use an anonymous โ€œgift cardโ€ the ammo still has to be shipped somewhere and it has to be signed for by someone over 18 (or 21 for handgun ammo).

Second, whyinthehell should anyone have to pass a background check in order to buy ammo? Itโ€™s bad enough that we have to pass a background check and show a photo ID (which requirement the DoJ says is racially discriminatory, at least when it comes to voting) to get a gun. But having already jumped through those hoops, why should we have to do the same in order to get ammo?

Third: what exactly is โ€œmachine gun ammunitionโ€? Given that Cal’s talking about the Aurora shooting, he must mean .223 which is used in some full auto rifles, but also is used in the AR-15, one of the most popular (if not the most popular) rifles in America.

But Cal waits until the very end of his piece to reveal his true agenda:

As long as it is still legal for people with an intent to kill to obtain assault weapons and ammunition, all we can do as citizens is hope our town isnโ€™t the next Aurora.

So what Cal really wants is a Bureau of Pre-Crime to prevent murders from happening. Sorry Cal, thatโ€™s not going to happen; the best we can hope for is that people wise up and stop going into โ€œgun free zonesโ€ like the Aurora theater, the Sikh Temple, Fort Hood, Lubyโ€™s cafeteria, the San Ysidro McDonaldโ€™s, Stockton, Binghamton, Columbine, VA Tech, Red Lake . . . pretty much location of every single mass casualty shooting but one (Tucson) in the last 60 years.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

65 COMMENTS

  2. I’ve always found it odd that the M1 Garand is never listed on any proposed “assault weapon” ban—-never mind that it’s the “greatest battlefield implement ever devised”. I’m pretty sure a rifleman with a Garand and pockets full of en bloc clips could kill a lot of people.

    Gun grabbers are idiots. I wonder how popular that dumb kid is in OKLAHOMA, FFS.

    • I have to agree Jean, the M1 and M1 carbine were history changing rifles.
      Despite it’s career on the battle field, it then turned into one of America’s most popular hunting rifles following the war.

  3. “…mass casualty shooting but one (Tucson)…” AZ is my home state

    So many of us were suprised Loughner didnt get shot, a lot of us in AZ CC or OC. One of the reports I read a while back said one of the first responders was a CCer but got there a minute too late.

    Loughner is a dirtbag anyways, how can someone shoot a litte girl and be content with themselves? Sick a-hole deserves a slow death.

    • There was- Joseph Zamudio. Youtube him- he gave several news interviews. He was well spoken and I thought he represented the gun community well.

    • That shit eating grin on Jared in his mugshot was too much. How the jail guards restrained themselves is beyond me.
      Ditto for carrot top, another one that should be taken out to the well and used to check the water level below.

      • They wouldn’t have to directly do anything, other than let it be known he killed an innocent child and then ignore whatever may happen by the population to him. I don’t think it would be the first time. Even the hardened crims know that messing with a child isn’t kosher and will sometimes let the perp of such a crime find out exactly what they think with a shiv or anything else they can use.

        • Search for “James McDougall’s obituary” in Orlando.

          I think he died about 1997.

          I’ll leave the searching and reading and discussing to you. Please do follow the links leading to why he was where he was when he died.

  4. I love how everyone points out that they didn’t have ‘assault weapons’ or semi autos when they wrote the 2A, but fail to recognize that the Americans fighting against the British had artillery and all the same technology as the people they were fighting. That was the idea, that should the government ever become tyrannical, the citizens could form a militia and have the same weapons the government does. I’m not supporting civilians having nukes or bombs, but I think FA guns, SBR, SBS, suppressors, and lots of other stuff civilians can’t get their hands on easily should be available for any law abiding citizen to own.

  5. I get angry when someone tells me I don’t need something I want and that it should be banned. That’s actually how I first got interested in firearms all those many years ago. At the most basic level it implies that they know what’s best for me only because they say so and that the force of the state should back up their authoritarian, idiotic viewpoint. It’s insulting and when it comes from some of the more intelligent antis (a few do exist) I think it reveals a hidden desire to see me subjugated or killed.

    My response to people like him is: “**** you, you don’t get to decide **** for me.”

    I don’t suffer judgmental, close-minded control freaks like this guy. Do any of you guys and gals naturally feel revulsion and/or anger when some tool says that kind of thing to you?

    • Jerry Miculek with that lightning fast revolver will get every six shooter out there banned as a “rapid fire” assault weapon too, darn him!!!

  7. โ€œHow many more tragedies need to happen before the United States joins the modern world in banning assault weapons?โ€

    I have 619 in the office pool.

    The amount of self-loathing among American gungrabbers is appalling, dontcha think? Here’s a better question: How many more incredibly stupid statements need to happen before the United States joins the modern world in banning free speech?

  8. I hate that I even belong to this reverse discriminating, freeloading, nothing of themselves generation. As for this kid, he’s just jumping on the band wagon, never shot a rifle, never held one, doesn’t know anything about anything.

  9. I think Cal’s parents must be very condescending folks and controlled him with manipulative leading questions, wouldn’t you all agree with me?

  10. Ooooh Lord…

    It’s like whack-a-mole… Shut one moron up, and another one (or two!) pops up saying the same tired old BS… “The founding fathers didn’t envision the AR15!”…

    I had a liberal supervisor who swore upon her grave that the founding fathers did not believe in the individuals right to keep and bear arms, that if you wanted a gun… Join the Army!

    “One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”
    –Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341

    I bet both those founding fathers would love to take a trip with me out to shoot an AR15 or an AK, who wants to build a time machine a take me up on that? I’ll bet a case of whatever beer you drink.

  11. Every time a gun grabber says “people don’t need [semi-automatic, high-capacity, full-auto, assault, hand, etc.] guns”, we should respond with a simple question and ask for a simple answer. “Then why do police departments have them?” Of course the gun grabber will respond for criminal attacks. Thus gun grabbers concede that criminal attacks, requiring a response with whatever type of gun they want to prohibit, are a given. The only question at that point is why a gun grabber would consider a government employee to be any more trustworthy with said type of gun than anyone else. Oh, and the other question is why a gun grabber would think a government employee would ever arrive fast enough to stop a criminal with said type of gun.

    With their head ready to explode after those two questions, you can hit them up with the simple fact that we all have the inalienable right to defend ourselves and move forward from there.

  12. I’ll double your beer bet if you add in an RSASS, a solid 2.5-10 Nightforce, about 20 mags, and 10k rounds of .308. Go back and give that to GW himself and see if he doesn’t have Cornwallis leaving the continent a couple years early.

    • I always love the “but they didn’t have semi-auto at the time of the revolution” argument.

      Is there any evidence anywhere to suggest that if the colonists had access to the SCAR 17 that the founders who were wary of concentrated, unaccountable state power would exclude the 2nd amendment or have some kind of two tiered system where ONLY the state would have access to them?

  13. “According to a Gallup poll taken last October (2011), 47% of households report having a gun in their home (or on their property). ” Let me post the corrected version of this statement:

    “According to a Gallup poll taken in 2011, 47% of households were naive or stupid enough to admit to someone they don’t know, over the phone, that they had a gun in their home. This result does not include the thousands of people who hung up on Gallup or told them to put their poll questions where the sun never shines.”

  14. Poor kid. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, leaving an anti-gun piece where Bruce might read it. He might never write another one.

    [/internet high five to Bruce]

  15. Control freaks ask what do you need. Then they give out less than the necessities. People who believe in freedom say do as you wish, so long as you hurt no innocent person. If this fellow would care to transfer to Arkansas, I’ll work with him on logic, history, good writing, and so forth.

  16. Jeez what is it with these anti-gun moles popping their heads out of the ground in some of the most pro-gun states in the country. They must have a fetish for being verbally dominated in a debate because that’s all they’re gonna get by being that stupid.

  17. How many more genocides need to occur before people make the connection between weapon confiscation and mass murder/oppression?

    And, really, TTAG is giving college students credence now? The opinions of college students is a joke; they’re essentially children who, upon now taking their first step into the real world, don’t know what to make of it and thus absorb the first stream of indoctrination they’re exposed to. They’re a punchline. (any present college students who have the mental fortitude to resist it excluded)

    There’s a reason the leftist manifesto appeals to college students…they’re child-minded at best, morons at worst.

    • “Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.” – H.L. Mencken

      Thought about this after reading your comment.

    • Silver,

      IMO TTAG shouldn’t be giving these idiots — students or older adults — any free publicity to increase their egos and online political presence. I would hope that TTAG could find other stories more relevant and practical for us to comment upon. I’m going to start reducing the number of stories I comment upon here.

    • It’s not giving them credence or validation. It’s giving the educated the chance to educate the ignorant. It also takes their ridiculous arguments and reveals the truth (about guns ๐Ÿ™‚ ). How utopia, peaceful existence, pursuit of happiness isn’t possible without someone to guard against evil. And I don’t mean the police. I mean law abiding citizens that won’t be victimized.

      There seems to be a lot of momentum going toward restored 2A rights, but we have to keep up the dialog. I’d like to think CA, NY and IL can get there, but it won’t without educating the undecided masses and grabbers that they’re wasting their time.

    • Excuse me for saying that this statement you make is unfounded and inherently ill-educated as most of the people in college these days are more of the 30s+ or veterans or combination thereof. Case in point, I will be 30 this year served during 9/11, and believe that only by basing whether to hear out the college student based on relevance of facts is the way to address the “college students” not all students are as ignorant or have so much lack of direction

      • Ok fine, obviously my post was directed toward straight from high school college types, 18-22, like this kid. They may not ALL be like that, but judging from what I see and hear, as well as my own college experience not too long ago, I wouldn’t trust a young college kid to tell me what the First Amendment says, much less hold a respectable political stance.

  18. Something tells me that young Calvin would be the first to complain, loudly, about slow police response times should he or loved ones ever encounter peril.

  19. Calvin Warner should be glad to know that Chicago has already joined the civilized world by banning assault weapons and ensuring no one can legally own a weapon in city limits without a FOID card and localized registration. As such , the city is a crime free paradise of civilized living.

    Nineteen people were injured in gun violence across Chicago Thursday night and early Friday morningโ€”13 of them during a 30-minute stretch in one of the most violent days the city has seen in nearly two months.

  20. Hey now no reason to be mean to this guy. He has his opinion. We might not agree with it at all but he is entitled to it.
    Now with that out of the way……
    Let’s start with the fact as Bruce so nicely pointed out for us, that this kid’s post is full of errors. I mean factual errors, like saying machine gun ammo, or the bad case of looking up history on the UK. Let’s not forget that the UK has had it’s share of violent crime including terrorist attacks and continuing gun crime.
    But to better understand our miss guided friend we need to understand his point of view. Really I swear… Forget about the tyranny thing, and all that for one second, ok maybe two…

    Cal here is frustrated at the loss of life and well the violence. Yup I get that, what happened in Aurora, and other spree killings was truly a tragedy. Yeah ok I get that too. Now his simple solution is ban all firearms. Yup make it a utopia. Make it so no one can ever shoot anyone else, ever. Even the cops won’t need guns. Well ok lets look at this for a moment.

    Let’s say the government take away all firearms in mass confiscation. STOP snickering, this is hypothetical here folks! ๐Ÿ˜‰ Now they close down their boarders and search every person and vehicle so no firearms can enter the country. Let’s set aside the fact that you can get CAD drawings for the AR and AK platform online for a moment. All loving peaceful Americans give up their guns willingly..
    Ok now I said stop Laughing hysterically with coffee shooting out your nose!

    What we have here is a hypothetical utopia right? Well not really.. But let’s run with this..
    Ok so now no one has guns, whew what a relief. Now a bank robber using a knife has a hostage, and well threatens to end this person’s life. Our LEO’s are not exactly known for their ninja skills and well after a few folks wind up dead because the LEO’s can only rush the perpetrator, well guess who will get guns back. Yup happened in the UK didn’t it.

    Now that the good old USA is defenseless, the terrorists overseas who hate us decide to have a little fun and start blowing up places we go. You know the shopping malls, and oh maybe a high school football game or two. Well forget the fact they don’t have to hide so hard now, and that using duffel bags and backpacks is easy. Loss of life kind of hits a high now, and cops can’t be everywhere right.

    Well ok maybe some security guards, and well our government get guns because they need to protect us right? Well they can’t respond fast enough.. So now what..

    I thought this was Utopia? I thought the government was supposed to protect us from all evil like extra large big gulps right??

    Ok back to Tyranny… Now that the populous has been sufficiently disarmed the government decides now is the time to change America once and for all. They dissolve the bill of rights and our constitution, because you know we don’t need it any more it is a dead document right?

    Bruce has a very valid point on willing to die for a cause. While I won’t say we as the AI are all willing to go to war, how many folks out there are willing to defend their ideals to such a drastic point?

  22. I’m seeing a very positive trend in fully restoring 2A rights. All but one (at the time) comments on the site with the ‘journalists’ article really supported 2A rights and corrected his many mistakes. That’s AWSOME! The same thing happened in the response regarding California Congressmen Yee’s bullet button ban. Again, awesome, that people are educated and well informed and have done the research that supports 2A rights. It goes way beyond the frantic “somethings got to be done’ attitude that the anti’s use. The statistics are clear worldwide, the weapons they seek to ban have very little to do with crime, but are soooooo scary.

    Weapons owned by law abiding citizens are one of the checks and balances against crime by individuals and corrupt governments.

  24. Sanchanim has a good point. No need to be mean to this guy. He’s on the wrong road and got his evidence muddled, but that’s no call for all the insults.

    Besides, he’s young. Most people at that age are trying out new ideas for the first time in their lives (even if they get the wrong ones at first, at least they’re trying). Heck, when I was that age I had the same opinion on guns, and I even came from a gun-friendly background. I was actually pro-gun at heart, but I just didn’t know it then.

    It’s frustrating to see the same flimsy argument again and again, but unlike the hardened gun-grabbers he’s following right now, he’s young enough that changing his mind based on experience and deeper thought is a real possibility. Less of a possibility if the memory of getting piled on by a bunch of gun nuts is burned into his brain.

  25. This article classifies the Sihk temple in Wisconsin as a weapons free zone. Was it in fact? It is not established as one by Wisconsin law. Was the temple in question posted as a weapons free zone? I have not noticed it being classified as such previously.
    I will look into this further I guess.

  26. Just another gun grabbing lunatic. Although if you think he is bad you should see Lucy Cope, the founder of Mothers Against Guns. She was once in a debate against Graham Showell from Britain Needs Guns.com and at a few points she was shouting so much, you could hardly understand what she was saying.

    However, the debate itself was constantly interrupted by ‘technical errors’ from the BBC, which I suspect was an effort of censorship on the part of the British Government.

  27. He’s a college kid. He as exactly as much experience as a college kid, which is arguably slightly more than that of a teenager. Sure, he’s wrong, but maybe he has a hottie liberal girlfriend who taught him all of that. He’ll likely dump those beliefs if he sees a hottie holding an AR-15. I took girls shooting in college, but I also pretended to be a hippie on occasion if that worked with the ladies.

    I’m neither intimidated nor particularly upset by his weak arguments. He hasn’t earned my respect, but I doubt we’ll ever change his mind with condescension and derision.

  28. Maybe we should get the young ‘man’ a nice AR, full auto, and see how much fun it is to dig for shells in the cleavage of the girl next to him. She’s a bit more zaftig than the afore-posted Jessica Alba.

  30. Bruce,

    Please send this in to the o’colly. They are pretty good at publishing opposing viewpoints. I would love to see this make the opinion section.

    Cody

  32. Hmmm, looking at his arguments, they sure do sound familiar. Perhaps we can shut him up, IF we can prove he plagiarized parts of his article. Small school papers usually have no way of defending themselves, or the columnists/reporters who plagiarize, so they usually put the heat on the offending person, even to the point of letting them go. It’s too bad that editorials can’t be held accountable for made up stuff though.

  33. While Switzerland is often the example of choice shown by gun owners to illustrate the fact that gun ownership does not equal gun crime, there is another part of the world where the ownership of full auto firearms is not only legal, there is no limit on their ownership for their citizens – the Gulf Co-operation Council member nations of the Middle east. These are Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. Jordan, which also allows the ownership of full auto firearms was recently accepted as a member of this group, and Yemen, which is not a member but maintains close ties, allows the ownership of not just full auto firearms but also of artillery. There’s not much “gun crime” in these nations, BTW, because crimes carry punishments ranging from amputations to beheadings, hangings and similar. The gun banners of the world are usually opposed to capital punishment or exemplary punishment of any kind, which only illustrates their idiocy even further.

  34. Any time someone trots out the idea that the second amendment only protects flintlocks, trot right back that the only printing presses then were flatbed manual ones, not the steam powered rotary presses invented in the 1800s which cranked out hundreds of thousands of newspapers a day.

    And of course the telegraph, radio, telephone, TV, and internet didn’t exist then either.

    • Almost certainly the latter.
      Education establishments from kindergarten up are in the main staffed by those of a socialist outlook.
      There’s also the problem brought about by most early years teachers are female & thus by their nature they seek to mould young males to closer resemble themselves, thus leading to their almost inevitable pussification.
      Another two – maybe three generations & they’ll succeed too. ๐Ÿ™

  36. LOL, I went to OSU, half of the vehicles there are pickup trucks with rifles in them. Obviously this kid is a Veterinarian student who has had his head way too close to his work.

  37. The massacre inspired Congress to take action against the machine guns and short-barreled shotguns that were common in gang violence. In 1934 President Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Firearms Act which imposed a hefty $200 fined on such gangster weapons.

  39. On the issue of banning guns, MAJ Nidal Hassan who committed the Fort Hood massacre was a high ranking Military Officer who used a gun on his own fellow soldiers. Would it make sense to take away all the guns from all of our Military soldiers because of the actions of one disturbed individual? Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Josh Brent chose to drive drunk, despite the fact that driving drunk is illegal, and during his illegal actions, killed his teammate. Do I need to give up my car? Do I need to give up my right to drink alcohol? If a sex offender commits an act of rape, will I then have to give up my penis? Where do we draw the line?

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