Sunday, December 16, 2012

Sunday Question for Conservatives

What should the conservative position on guns be?
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Posted by Jonathan Bernstein at 1:57 PM
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 16, 2012 at 4:55 PM

    Strict restrictions on gun ownership by those convicted of crimes and by those found to be mentally disturbed by certified mental health professionals, and a ban on private ownership of automatic weapons, but otherwise gun ownership should not be restricted. The UK, with a virtually total ban on private ownership of handguns, has a much higher rate of home invasion than the USA and other anglosphere countries that permit private gun ownership.

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  2. MercerDecember 16, 2012 at 5:10 PM

    People with no criminal records or mental health problems should be allowed guns in their home. People should not be allowed to take guns into private businesses against the wishes of business owners. I have no problems with restricting guns in public places like colleges. If gun control people want to advance their agenda they should demand the right to carry weapons into Congress and state capital buildings to embarrass politicians who follow the NRA line.

    High capacity magazines could be banned.

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  3. AnonymousDecember 16, 2012 at 6:00 PM

    Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

    If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

    The other side of freedom is responsibility.

    And so on. You know perfectly well what is the conservative position on guns.

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  4. MyNameDecember 16, 2012 at 6:24 PM

    But the question was what should it be? And the subtext might include: "given the number of high profile public shootings by individuals who acquired their guns through legal channels, what should the conservative position on gun control be?"

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  5. CSHDecember 17, 2012 at 9:11 AM

    I think Anonymous above raises a good point, as widespread private gun ownership does seem to deter B&E's. Our relatives in the Toronto suburbs have a relatively serious problem with squeegie kids coming out to the burbs and breaking into homes; that never happens here in US flyover country, surely the fact that every second house is armed has something to do with that.

    But do automatic weapons help with that goal? Or the multiple weapons Nancy Lanza owned? That seems highly unlikely to me.

    I think conservatives have to get serious about this; I'm uneasy about what this Lanza kid may represent. I grew up as the nouveau, not-particularly-riche impostor outsider in an old money community. I don't have data, but my impression is that kids like Adam Lanza, the Fredo son of the 1%, would have been accomodated 30 years ago. There was a desk somewhere behind which they could sit so as to retain the family mystique. I can't recall a Lanza-type, lame offspring of the 1%, failing as publicly or being outcast as widely as that kid apparently was.

    If that is a function of those desk jobs for loser offspring of the 1% being a casualty of our glorious new, Applebee's-jobs economy, there may be way more Adam Lanzas out there than we're comfortable with. We gotta get control of the guns, especially if we're losing control of the fabric of society.

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