Friday, April 20, 2007

Plate suggests giving up right to bear arms...

In what will probably stir some controversy and to be perfectly honest, something I'm not sure I could agree with comes a commentary written by Tom Plate, former editor of the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times, and now a professor of communication and policy studies at UCLA. He suggests that we need to get rid of our guns, he discusses the recent killings in Virginia and relates an experience where he was recently robbed at gunpoint.

As I stated, I'm not sure the solution is to get rid of all guns, I think it would be impossible to do so and the reality would be that law abiding citizens may be forced to turn over their guns but that guns would still be available to those with less than honorable intentions. A recent situation here in my hometown where a home that held several weapons, one even an assault type one was broken into and those guns were stolen. Last report, not recovered...Then from my libertarian history, the mere idea of having only the government be allowed to have weapons goes against our own need for self preservation. Granted the chances of us ever needing guns to protect us against our own government gone wild is not very likely but given the history of nations, it's not something that can be totally ruled out either...

3 comments:

Scott G said...

I am not against people having guns. I just think that what they should have access to should be limited. Hollow point bullets and automatic or semiautomatic weapons are not necessary for most people. People also shouldn't need assault rifles or .50 cal machine guns. Unless you are shooting through a tank there is no reason for a .50 cal. And unless you are a bad hunter or extremely paranoid, you do not need a functional assault rifle.

I think the 2ned Amendment was written in a time where people were more on their own in terms of safety and protection. We now have a huge active military and police that cover most areas of the country. And almost everyone needed to hunt for food. The same is not true today. Grant let the Confederates take their weapons home after they surrendered because they needed them to hunt and survive, not because of the Constitution.

kateb said...

The founding fathers set up several safeguards to make sure the government could not over take the people.

One of those items was the right to bear arms. For a government to become a dictatorship, first they must disarm the citizens.

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

”Granted the chances of us ever needing guns to protect us against our own government gone wild is not very likely but given the history of nations, it's not something that can be totally ruled out either...’

You are exactly right Lisa.

However, never say never…

head spinner scott,
”We now have a huge active military and police that cover most areas of the country.”

That’s also exactly why we still need to protect ourselves today. The government runs the Police/Military.

kateb,
A gold star for you; you do get it!


In theory, the police and military are supposed to work for us.

Gun ownership by the average citizen guarantees that they don’t forget it, even if our leaders do. . .