by Kevin Battleson

Created on: March 17, 2009

I believe that we need to pass more gun control legislation in red states.

There are three reasons for this:

1) Ban on Assault Weapons

There are some states where this legislation is not enforced. There are a myriad of excuses for this reasoning, from the idea that period pieces are antiques that need to be preserved, that we need assault rifles to protect us from government oppression, and the occasional wingnut who insists they are "hunting rifles" used to bring down big game.

Here is my basic reasoning for a ban on assualt weapons. Lets start with something we can all probably agree on. We should not allow the private ownership of thermonuclear weapons. Granted, there are many of us who probably feel that the government shouldn't own them either, but, for arguments sake, lets start here.

So, with this basic exception to the 2nd amendment in mind, lets continue further down the line. All in all, we probably shouldn't allow private citizens to own f-16 fighter/bomber jets, or allow your average joe to commute to work in an abrahms tank everyday. (The roadwork alone would cost a fortune) So it follows that if the government says it is illegal to even post INFORMATION about building an explosive device, that private ownership of explosives without some legitimate commercial purpose is probably a diasaster waiting to happen. Most people agree with that sentiment, though there are some who would like to see a return to the halycon days of a bygone era where any hacker with a 56 k modem could download instructions on how to make a pipebomb without any reprecussions from the federal government whatsoever. However, we will discount them, as they do not compose a sizable minority, (Less than 1% of the population) and have opinions not condusive to journilistic work of a more practical nature than scrawling "u nubz are teh stupid, gunz rulz!" across some poor bloggers forum.

So we come to our point of contention: assault weapons. What constitutes an assault weapon? In my mind, any fully automatic gun which fires a rifle caliber sized bullet is a canidate. M-16s, AK-47s, chinese submachineguns made from old metal furniture, anything which follows the "spray and pray" philosophy, as first advanced by the military, that a novice is more likely to hit their target if they fire more bullets in rapid succession than taking time to aim at the person they are trying to shoot. The reasoning against private ownership of these weapons is simple; collatoral damage. These weapons will

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