Rant

[anterus]

'Inherently dangerous' is a phrase that gets overused in the gun debate. To my mind, the only types of weapons which are inherently dangerous are Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. Just about every other 'weapon,' if you leave it alone, it doesn't hurt you, or anyone else. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons can do harm by their

Comments

[anterus]

I can't really argue that a sword or a gun or a bow or a crossbow or a pike was ever meant for anything other than the rending of flesh, human or animal. But I never look at something sitting on a table, or in a rack, or whatever, as dangerous, unless even in the act of not being used it causes harm to those around it. NBC weapons clearly do that, unless stored in very specific ways. A pike in a weapons rack is not going to jump up and attack you, so it's not inherently dangerous, to my mind. Explosives walk something of a grey area between NBC weapons and guns, knives, towed artillery pieces, etc., since they can go off without warning under certain conditions (Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordinance comes to mind).

I'll agree that it's pretty much required that a weapon of any sort be 'dangerous' while in use, otherwise, it's not much of a weapon. More to the point, 'inherently dangerous' was being used to describe handguns, because they can be concealed without too much difficulty, and thus they might be carried into schools.

Of course, banning such weapons will never stop someone who really WANTS to bring it in, or generally misuse it, so it seems unfair to place the rest of us on poorer ground, just because some people are bad. It's pre-school logic. One person does something wrong, so now everyone must suffer for it, feel guilty! All that does is punish law-abiding citizens for the acts of criminals and leaves said law-abiding citizens at a severe disadvantage when confronted with criminals who are so-armed. Passing new laws won't stop criminals from getting the weapons (or drugs, or whatever) they want, because we just don't have enough law enforcement officers to ensure that every person obeys the law all the time or is caught disobeying it. The number of LEOs that requires would also require living in a police state the likes of which hasn't ever really existed, since you'd need something like 1 monitor per nuclear family, maybe more (since nuclear families can easily split up into several groups, depending on size). You'd pretty much need to be watched everywhere, at all times, and that's basically impossible.

Furthermore, it's been established in the courts that such police as we do have are under no obligation to protect the individual. Thus, that pretty much leaves you to protect yourself. Being armed and trained is a highly effective means to that end, but is also a decision that should be made by the individual. I've certainly made that decision, it's part of why I've studied martial arts (and wish to continue to do so, when I can afford it), and it's why I have a concealed handgun permit and a handgun. It seems wholly unreasonable that my ability to legally effectively defend myself against a wide range of threats should suddenly vanish because I step over some invisible line into a different locality (say, if I step over into MD or DC from VA). It gets worse, too, since I can't just check my gun at the border and get it when I come back into VA; instead, I must leave it at home, leaving me unprotected in my travels through areas where I would otherwise be allowed to defend myself, in addition to the time I spend in the more restrictive states.

Ranting again, and off-topic, at this point.