Assault Weapons Ban Sunset

Why do all the trolls come out at once?

I dunno, but they migth be dangerous. We better get rid of them.

Despite having admitted that the above post is a troll, I'm going to indulge it just this once:

I am going to acknowledge that there are many things which we all use on a day-to-day basis that are both useful and dangerous. I'm also going to grant that it would be problematic to try to create some sort of formla that would compare the utility of a particular item to its danger. So I'm not going to create a scale. I don't think one is necessary. In fact, all I think I need is the following claim:

Assault weapons have absolutely no utility among civilians.

Either ban all guns or no guns. I used to be very adamant about banning guns; however, the possesor is the problem.

And yet you don't even attempt to make a compelling argument as to why there is a problem with banning some weapons (ex: those which have no civilian utility) and not others (ex: those which might reasonably be used for hunting or self defense).

I think it's been established that an object is only as dangerous as the wielder of this object makes it.

As far as civilian utility, that 'argument' doesn't even need to be addressed. It's called the second amdendment, dude. Big problem.

Anything that negatively encroaches on our rights, our liberties as Americans, should be a concern of every citizen. Civilian usage of cigarettes kill far more people than civilian usage of 'assault weapons'. Does the concept, "innocent until proven guilty" sound familiar? In order to take away a freedom you need to prove that it is both harmful and unconstitutional. Your argument is that civilians don't need these weapons. This is true. But Civilians don't need cigarettes or sports cars either. In America, we pride ourselves in having a government that allows us to make our own decisions from a logical process of deduction. The facts say the ban did not work, these second amendment is against it. Where is your logic?

I don't really feel compelled to go through your response piece by piece, but I did want to address what you said about the 2nd amendment. I respect that gun rights is a difficult issue, but it's lazy to write off any argument for gun control as moot because of the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment gives Americans the right to "bear arms." The word "guns" does not appear anywhere in the text of the amendment.

Both the American government and the American people have accepted limits on what "arms" citizens can legally bear; as an extreme example, we cannot own nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. These are "arms" just as all types of guns are "arms," but they have no civilian utility and they are extremely dangerous. It's the same argument on a different scale.

I'm willing to accept that the difference in scale is vast and that we may simply disagree on where the balance of regulation ought to be, but you can't simply whip out the 2nd amendment and call the argument done.