From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 15:47:08 MST
On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, you wrote:
> So, I don't think America's aversion against banning guns has any rational
> structure at all. There is no need to buy them back. There is no need to be
> easy on guns. You just ban them, instate a heavy fine on owning illegal
> weapons, and that's it. Give everyone a year or two to get used to the fact,
> and the problem is solved.
"no need to buy them back"? Do you realize how much money many people
have invested in firearms? Considering that the a quarter of the
population owns guns in the US, and that most of them probably have guns
and accessories valued in excess of a thousand dollars, this would be an
extraordinarily vile policy and extremely unpopular. You completely
disregard the consequences of such a stupid action. Why would anyone
dispose of their weapons in a government approved fashion simply because it
was illegal? Whenever the government passes legislation to make something
illegal to possess that is already in wide circulation, particularly in
cases where no compensation is offered, all that happens is that the vast
majority of owners either keep what they own but lower the profile, or
they sell it on the grey/black market, which is always buying. The
economic motive is there and the result is that the government has even
less control than before.
And how would you like it if you bought a house and the government came in
and simply took it away, without so much as a penny's worth of
compensation, because someone else decided they should? Fact is, most of
the people I know who own guns have at least $10,000 worth of gun stuff;
it is bad enough to confiscate the gear, it is even worse to do so in a
fashion that deprives a person of assets without even the semblence of due
process (which is almost certainly unconstitutional anyway).
Of course, a total "buyback" in the U.S. would be an extraordinarily
expensive endeavor, considering the number of guns in circulation
(hundreds of millions); I'm not sure that people would be willing to pay
$100+ Billion in taxes to allow the government to buy/take everyone's
weapons.
Legislating a total ban without compensation on something that most
everyone owns and that was expensive to purchase is a stupid and assinine
policy. This isn't even about guns; it is flawed in principle applied to
any material item with a similar profile.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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