re: #307 Charles Johnson

Come on! Let’s face it - the pro-gun lobby is going to fight like mad demons against any and all attempts to regulate gun ownership, whether it’s called a “ban” or not. They’ve been doing this for decades.

One of the first rules of negotiating is that you don’t negotiate with yourself. You don’t pre-emptively water down your positions to try to get concessions from the other party - especially when you know the other party is not going negotiate in good faith, and the pro-gun lobby is about as far from good faith as it’s possible to be.

I still like Shiplord Kirel’s suggestion to put guns like the Bushmaster .223 that Lanza was using into the same NFA class as machine guns, which likewise have no legitimate use besides to kill a whole of people quickly. There will be the argument, which is not without weight, that that constitutes an effective ban on such weapons because the average American will not be able to afford the cost and go through the trouble of obtaining an NFA class III license just to buy such a rifle. But it’s also on solid Constitutional grounds, as seen in US v. Miller.