Hello again, this is your host Will Luden with Revolution 2.0™. Welcome. Learn more and subscribe at revolution2-0.org

Thinking Through Gun Control (EP. 166) 

Introduction

As sane people, we all want to reduce gun violence. No sane individual or group wants to allow kids to die so they can have the right to own an AK-47. If you are one of those, stop reading, unsubscribe and turn yourself in. AK-47s are already illegal. 

The perfect solution, admittedly unattainable, would be to have perfect foreknowledge of who would and who would not use guns illegally. Those who would never do anything wrong with a firearm would be allowed to buy and possess them, and the known-to-be gun criminals would be barred. Perfect.  As with many issues, the perfect solution is unachievable, so let’s try to come as close as we can. 

That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.

Continuing

Let’s think through gun control together, and as always at Revolutions 2-0™ with the overall goal of promoting thoughtful, productive discussions, completely replacing cliche-based so-discussions that rest on the three-legged stool of incomplete facts, preconceived notions and insults and accusations. 

Let’s use the search for a common goal here as a way of us all getting on the same page. And--and--as a way of flushing out disguised goals. Some proponents of additional gun control really want to ban all guns, but they are not ready to promote that as policy just yet. In the 3rd Democratic debate, Beto O’Rourke came out with a full-throated call for a mandatory buyback, confiscation, of “assault weapons” and “weapons of war”, specifically AR-15s and AK-47s; the audience responded enthusiastically. These two firearms should never be mentioned in the same breath. The AK is indeed a fully automatic weapon of war. The AR is a semi-automatic rifle using detachable magazines. Let’s listen to Wikipedia:

“The AK-47 was designed to be a simple, reliable, fully automatic rifle that could be manufactured quickly and cheaply, using mass production methods that were state of the art in the Soviet Union during the late 1940s. The AK-47 uses a long stroke gas system that is generally associated with great reliability in adverse conditions. The large gas piston, generous clearances between moving parts, and tapered cartridge case design allow the gun to endure large amounts of foreign matter and fouling without failing to cycle.” Wikipedia

“An AR-15 style rifle is a lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the ArmaLite AR-15 design.” Wikipedia

Manufactured by Armalite Rifle, hence the designation AR. No military or self-respecting terrorist group uses semi-auto rifles. Including the US. It is not an assault rifle; it is certainly not a “weapon of war.”

I gave these clear and accurate definitions of the two firearms to make two points. 1. If we are going to talk about banning either the purchase or possession of currently legal products, we should at least know what we are talking about. 2. Let’s not dance around issues and prevaricate in order to get to where we want to go. For example, if we want to ban semi-automatic rifles, then stand up and say that. Don’t call an AR an assault weapon in order to get there. We can have an honest and open discussion about banning semi-automatic rifles. We do not need to mislead people in order for them to get to the correct solution. Trust people to make the right decisions when they have the correct information. In other words, think better of the people, the citizens, the voters who are ultimately responsible for the decisions. 

Here is an example of a potentially productive common goal related to reducing gun violence: Keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable, while allowing law abiding citizens the right to keep and bear...