Unfortunately, one side in the gun debate is not just ignorant of basic facts but militantly and willfully so. In fact, many are just plain idiotic.
Gun control advocates demand “commonsense” gun control measures, like expanding background checks, closing the “gun show loophole,” and banning “assault” weapons, machine guns and “high capacity” magazines. They claim it’s easier to buy a gun than to buy books, and anyone opposing their “commonsense” reforms must want children to die.
Setting aside momentarily the reprehensible charge that a disagreement on policy is evidence of a desire to see more dead children, these proposals are riddled with errors and logical fallacies.
For example, though gun control advocates routinely refer to banning “assault” weapons, the truth is there are almost none in civilian possession. The U.S. Department of Defense defines assault weapons as “short, compact, selective-fire weapons.” In other words, a battlefield rifle capable of both semiautomatic (one round fired per trigger pull) and fully automatic (repeated fire with single trigger pull) fire. Fully automatic weapons (i.e., machine guns) have been banned for civilian use since the National Firearms Act of 1934.
by Louis DeBroux
