
Why I Need an AR-15 - tlrobinson
https://medium.com/@jonst0kes/why-i-need-an-ar-15-832e05ae801c#.1pzf918f5
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danso
I thought this was a pretty reasonable piece, and it should shed some light to
how difficult it is to juggle support for the Second Amendment (in terms of
interpreting it as an individual right) and coming up with limitations that
don't lead down a slippery slope of neutering that ostensible right.

Even the idea of barring those under FBI investigation of getting a gun is
troublesome. There is no due process when it comes to being put on the no-fly
or terrorist-watch list. If the individual right to bear arms is on the same
level as the rights to free speech, religion, and petition...barring someone
from such a right without due process should be seen as an extreme situation,
similar to how getting a National Security Letter restricts one's right to
speak freely about it...but even that restriction is very narrow with respect
to the 1st Amendment.

Note: I'm not saying I agree with the above perspective, just that it's
understandable why the NRA et al. don't see a gun ban for a terrorist-watch-
list as being so cut and dry.

The saddest thing about the gun debate to me is how it sparks up most after
huge massacres...and yet, as the OP's inclusion of a Pew survey shows,
sentiment toward gun rights _increased_ after Newtown [1]...and this makes
sense to me. I'm pretty neutral about gun ownership (I don't own a gun
currently, and was happy to have the right restricted living in NYC, but would
not be opposed to owning a gun if I were to move to a more rural area)...but
the desire to own a gun can sharply correlate with the magnitude of a
massacre...after all, the natural tendency is to think: _if only someone had a
gun to stop that maniac..._ , as opposed to thinking of the bigger picture of
societal impact. Mass shootings are just a very small percentage of gun-
related homicides...and owning a gun may not be helpful for the 99.999% of
life in which you _don 't_ find yourself in desperate need of a gun.

In other words, making gun policy after a huge mass shooting is almost
counter-productive for anti-gun-rights advocates, as that is when the fantasy
of stopping evil with a gun is strongest. Or, to put it another way, it's the
gun-rights version of the saying, "Hard cases make bad law"

[1] [https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*hpdizpnRtEtO1igvL...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*hpdizpnRtEtO1igvLciPow.png)

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smt88
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912665)

