The guns of the Las Vegas mass shooter, used and unused, have been recovered and, once again, we have to ask, what use is there for these kinds of weapons?
There are legitimate uses for firearms that I will not argue against. Firearms used for personal safety is one such category, although I believe that the argument for their effectiveness is based more upon fiction (books and movies, etc.) than upon reality, so I am just setting this category aside for the moment. Guns used for hunting I feel are legitimate. But what possible use is there for automatic or rapid fire weapons, often called (misleadingly) assault rifles? There are just two uses I see: for recreation and for killing large numbers of people. The second reason was why those weapons were designed in the first place. Before such weapons were supplied to soldiers, who became familiar with their use, there was no recreational rapid fire market at all. So, seriously, those weapons were weapons of war designed to kill as many people as one could, as quickly as one could, and for no other purpose.
So, starting with the recreational uses, I support their use recreationally but in authorized and regulated sites set aside for that purpose. Just as you do not need to own an RV to experience a vacation in an RV … you can rent one … you do not need to own an automatic or rapid fire rifle to experience one. I think it would be great fun blazing away for an hour or so, and this would be much cheaper than owning the weapon. You just wouldn’t have access to one 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Scattering thousands upon thousands of these weapons throughout our society is just asking for trouble, and that is exactly what we have gotten. (Note: from 2000 to 2010, approximately 2,000,000 rifles were manufactured “for domestic use” by American manufacturers, about 20% of which fit a description of “AR-15 type.” I also presume that foreign manufacturers haven’t decided to forgo the lucrative U.S. market out of the goodness of their hearts, so I can’t imagine how many “other” weapons of this type are in circulation. Do the math, people.)
There is another use for these weapons, a use which is of a subset of “killing large numbers of people” reasons: that of opposition governmental tyranny. I feel I must address this as some folks are putting this forward as a reason why they need these weapons.
Seriously? If you think like this, you are saying that you, with or without your buddies, armed with the semiautomatic weapons available today, have a snowball’s chance in Hell of going toe to toe with the Fifth Cavalry … successfully. Ask the people in Ruby Ridge how that worked out. The “guvmint” has men and weapons in quantities that would … and should … overwhelm any such uprising in milliseconds. Imagine your doughty little troop of patriots and how they would feel when an armored helicopter showed up with a couple of M61 Vulcan cannons capable of firing 6000 rounds per minute. They would probably have to identify your remains through DNA testing as there wouldn’t be much in the way of bodies left to identify through dental records and the like. And, remember, this is the Fifth Cavalry and the tanks haven’t shown up as yet.
The idea of “we need these weapons to oppose government tyranny” is likewise based more upon fiction (books and movies, etc.) than upon reality.
So, there are legitimate reasons why people should be allowed to own and possess guns, but in civilized countries, those owners and their guns are heavily regulated … for the protection of the rest of us. When the Second Amendment of the Constitution was written (and I will point out that since it was an amendment, it was not thought important enough to include in the first version) the population of the US was under four million people. I currently live in a city in which there are roughly nine million people living in a fifty mile radius of here. A gun fired off in 1789, at a deer, or a marauder, was unlikely to hit a bystander (although more than a few did, consider the Boston Massacre). Now, a gun fired off is almost guaranteed to hit someone other than a participant in the original dispute. Imagine the scenario in Las Vegas, if all of the concert goers were “packing heat” and “returned fire” when they realized they were being shot at, what do you think the consequences would have been. (Note—most people “hit the deck” when they realized they were being shot at, unaware they were being shot at from high above and were still exposed. Where they may have returned fire is anyone’s guess.) The conditions which that Amendment was written for have changed substantially.
Also, we have to get a lot smarter at this. Allowing Americans to be mowed down so that gun manufacturers can keep their profits high is insanity. Having hunting weapons in New York City is insane. There is nothing to hunt except other people. Having hunting weapons in rural Montana is sane. All of the rules need not apply in all locations, but there need to be sane rules. The Swiss have gun rules up the yin-yang, and they have almost as many guns as we do, but nowhere near as many deaths due to gun fire. They are sane; we are not.