This is mostly a response to a discussion in the comments section of a post on Libertas and Latte. It’s a bit long for a comment so I’m posting it here. I’m also posting it here because I’m a narcissist and want to post something on my own blog rather than someone else’s, but the first point is still valid.
The original post is about the Indiana mall hero.
I already posted the following comment:
I think I’m with the majority of people who support some gun control measures but not any that would have disarmed Mr. Dicken.
It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see enough people pointing that out. I see people on the right distorting reality as expected by holding up this story as the only piece of data we need to prove that gun laws don’t work, and guys on the left shooting themselves in the foot by only grudgingly acknowledging Mr. Dicken’s heroism rather than holding him up an example of the kind of legally armed citizen who would not be disarmed by common sense gun control measures
So what “common sense gun control measures” do I support and how far am I from fellow gun control advocates?
Starting with what I don’t support: I don’t support severe limits on magazines and I don’t support outlawing many features that some say differentiate an assault weapon from a hunting rifle. And I cringed with Beto O’Rourke said, “Hell Yes”
On that last point, “Hell Yes” undermined years of Democratic talking points, and I’m surprised at how many people supported him in saying so. My friends still post memes ridiculing right wing paranoia about gun-grabbers, even after Beto endorsed their paranoia. I still don’t think it will happen. I don’t want to grab your guns and I don’t think it would be realistic to try.
Note: Gun-grabbing now also refers to red-flag laws, many of which I do support. Here, I’m using “gun-grabbing” to mean outlawing the ownership, not just the sale, of weapons which are currently legal.
I support background checks, concealed carry licenses, red-flag laws, and maybe some high limits on how many rounds a single weapon can hold. But those limits would have to be high. I wouldn’t want my 22 Marlin outlawed because I can drop more than 10 bullets into the loading tube.
The gun legislation that I support, and hope others get onboard with, might not disarm most of the nutjob shooters, but they’ll stop some. And as I said, none of these would have disarmed Mr. Dicken.
BnmnG 
Nothing wrong with keeping the cobwebs out of your own blog….I have a hard enough time posting as well, with all the competition for my time.
I think we could both agree that legislation….especially where it concerns a Constitutional Right (strict scrutiny)…..must be definable and measurable, in order to be just. This should apply for any legislation really.
Regarding your offered examples, I would begin by stating that “assault rifles” ( a term that I don’t subscribe to), are very often used for hunting. The common misconception is that just because a rifle has an external magazine that can hold ‘X’ number of rounds……that a hunter is going to expend those rounds in ‘rapid fire’ fashion against an animal. Nothing could be further from the truth. The self-loading function does however, allow a hunter to get off another shot if needed, a bit faster than exercising a bolt-action reload.
The other misconception is that people seem to assume that these rifles only fire the 5.56/.223 round, which actually is excellent for varmints; these rifles however (depending on what you buy or how you customize the chambering) can come in a wide, wide variety of calibers….ranging from .22LR to .50 cal. Different calibers being more or less suitable for different game.
These rifles are also modular, allowing for a variety of optics, and scalable, allowing for comfortable and safe use by hunters of a variety of body sizes and types. Further, the generally low recoil in these rifles, allows for a more comfortable hunting experience for people who might not enjoy the kickback of bolt-action rifles.
I’ll take a pause for my day job, and come back with comments on some other examples.
The concept if Red Flag laws do have some merit in my estimation, but there are some serious concerns regarding Due Process. I’d have to see the fine print before supporting. We do however, need to keep firearms out of the hands of mentally unstable people. Don’t get me started on how parents have been actively seeking diagnoses and medication for their kids for the past couple of decades.
Background checks in and if themselves, are fine as is….what needs to be fixed, is the flow of information from federal, state and local agencies into NICS. This should absolutely include juvenile records.
I don’t support ‘universal background checks’ primarily because they do not fall under the definable and measurable framework I referenced above. Happy to dive into this further.
And magazine size/capacity. I consider it ludicrous to have legislation where a certain number of an item is lawful, but one more than that makes one a criminal. That coupled with the bizarre pursuit by some states (NY & NJ I believe) that would have limited magazine capacity to a number that no manufacturer anywhere, produces. (7 was the NY number, if memory serves)
Did the interwebz eat my comments?
Yes, it did. WordPress kicked you into Spam for some reason. Sorry about that
No worries. I saw them when I refreshed, and then the next time they were gone. I was genuinely interested in your thought about what I wrote.
I’ll reply but I’m off to work right now
I agree with just about all of what you wrote but we’d disagree over details.
I’m interested in your views on background checks. I don’t think a guy should have to run a background check on a friend before giving, trading, or selling him a gun. But I don’t think he should sell it to a stranger in a yard sale. And I think if you give someone a gun you have some responsibility, perhaps civil, for what that person does with it.
With the magazine size, there should be a balance between how many rounds you need to defend yourself or hunt and how many an attacker can get off before people have a chance to stop him. I don’t think it’s ludicrous to set a limit.
I agree there is a potential to abuse red-flag laws. This concern comes from left as well as the right – Some BLM and LGBTQ type protesters are concerned that they’ll be targeted by law enforcement. So laws have to be written to prevent that