The Latin American states where the elites lives on hill-side housing, protected by guards and fences, all have fairly strict gun laws. They aren't going to let the poor arm themselves! While European gun laws are usually stricter than those in the "red states" of US, there are many places that have more lax laws than New York, Connecticut, and California (Czech Republic and Italy two examples that popped to my head; New Zealand and some Canadian provinces -- while not in Europe -- are also more lax than NY/CT/CA/MD afaik).
The reason you have the firepower is because those left behind by the knowledge work revolution and living in the inland US still have sufficient political power to counter the Manhattanites and San Franciscans eager to take that firepower away ("oh no, we can't let the peons be seen carrying their icky icky AR-15s, ewww!").
The biggest pusher of gun control in the United States is Mike Bloomberg -- he also happens to be a fairly enthusiastic defender of Wall Street. In his mind it makes perfect sense: why would the elites arm themselves directly, if they can just isolate themselves in Manhattan and Pacific Heights, protected by an armed police state. His gun control support (which seems to be back firing so far) is a great way for him to score brownie points many liberals (who would otherwise be diametrically opposed to most of his positions) without actually proposing any laws that would inconvenience the top 1-0.1% of the population.
I'd imagine the Swiss voters (who are voting for this) are laughing extra hard; upon completion of their militia service, they're able buy their service rifle (SIG 552) for $35 (the cost of converting it to a semi-automatic) -- the US-export equivalent (SIG 556) costs in excess of $1800 and cannot be purchased by those in New York or CT (and without significant alterations, in California), the states where quasi-technocratic elites dominate politics: they "know" what's best for the lowest classes (hence support of paternalistic programs like SNAP as well as individual mandates like social security and ACA), they also "know" what's the best for you to defend yourself.
No, I don't think there are low crime rates for this reason. I have never implied this or stated this. In any case a comparison between Switzerland and US is bizarre -- there are far too many differences to idly (without multivariate analysis on data that is likely not even available) claim that any one variable explains lower crime rate in one vs. the other.
I do happen to think that it's better for individuals to decide on their own whether the risks of keeping a firearm are outweighed by any protection it offers. My firearms are stored unloaded, under lock, with ammo in a separate location: I live in a safe neighbourhood -- which I can finally afford to do after winning the IPO lottery (to be blunt) -- so for me the risks outweigh the benefits; I don't, however, claim to be able to make this choice for others. I would much rather see housing prices go down (even though I will be hurt personally by this) and for the (scary) trend of growing education-based stratification of US society to end -- stratification which is largely manifested in ways American families live.
"Not giving a shit about legality" is far worse than even outright (but enforced) bans -- it means the criminals are able to get away with it, but individuals citizens who want to actually use it for self-defense or sport cannot.
You're also confusing two aspects of Swiss laws: militia members can keep their service rifle at home while it's a fully automatic (i.e., an actual assault rifle) with restricted ammo (I think the restrictions, however, are to prevent the military issued ammo to be used for non-military purpose; you can still take it to the range and use it with civilian purchased ammo).
Separately from this, after the end of their militia service, they have the option of paying to have it permanently converted it to semi-automatic and keeping it under the same laws as other civilian firearms.
On the other hand, fully automatic/select fire weapons are essentially illegal in the United States, military members can't keep their automatic rifles with them at home, and so on. Like in Switzerland, most US states do permit ownership of semi-auto versions of those rifles (however, afaik in the United States, they must have been manufactured as semi-automatics -- there's murky case law that can land you into trouble for having cerrain M16 parts in an AR-15, for example). However, some states (e.g., NY) ban them completely..
You are perfectly able to own an automatic rifle manufactured before 1986. The only thing preventing such ownership is simply that the number of rifles that fit this criteria is becoming less and less by the day, which means that the price for a weapon like this is high. Granted, this means that a member of the US armed forces cannot keep his M4.
> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The key point here is "well regulated." Do you believe that any person, simply because they live in the United States, should be allowed to own a hand grenade? I personally think not. Is there really a difference between hand grenades and automatic rifles? Again, I personally think not.
You are perfectly able to own an automatic rifle manufactured before 1986.
Owning nothing newer than a quarter-century old (most likely much older and significantly used), at about a 25x markup, and submitting to strict licensing & monitoring, IF you can find anything close to what you actually want amid dwindling supply in a market more akin to "great art" investment than home defense ... hardly "perfectly able".
As an upstanding citizen, who may be called up for military duty at any time (i.e.: draft), I have a right to buy/make an M4 of my own without legal harassment & undue cost.
well regulated
Read that enumerated right as: "considering that a nation needs a standing army to remain secure, the fact that such a standing army exists does not in any way justify limiting the right of individual citizens from owning and appropriately using all the terrible instruments of the soldier, including cannons and battleships." Think about that long and hard, from the Founding Fathers' point of view (they had just overthrown domination by the world's superpower and wanted to enumerate key rights of the individual), before responding.
I've used automatic rifles. The fearful power most people impute on them doesn't exist; they're overrated (useful, but overrated). And yes, individuals should be allowed to own hand grenades, precisely because it is nobody else's right to "allow" such ownership so long as nobody is unduly threatened thereby. The "right" to restrict ownership only comes from situations where innocents are at genuine demonstrable risk of harm, at which point it's just a matter of self-defense by those innocents and their delegates (gov't/police); machine-guns & grenades do not inherently cross that line, while (yes) nukes do.
All this tangential arguing about weapons comes back to the basic argument against the thread's premise: you do NOT have the right to take my money without my permission and give it blindly to everyone else. Doing so on the pretext of "give poor people money so they don't kill me" violates my right to keep what is mine (and use it as I see fit), which is backed by my consequential right to use whatever tools necessary to enforce that right. Leave me be, and I'll be quite charitable; take what's mine by threat of force, with no more justification than mob rule, and equal force in response is justified - not because of what's taken, but because of the threat.
Problem is that a 5.56 automatic rifle isn't going to be helpful when the enemy is also coming with 5.56, 5.45, 7.62x39 automatic rifles (the choice of plutocracies), but in greater quantities and aided by helicopters, tanks, etc...
A bolt action or semi-auto 7.62x51 or .30-06 is a lot more useful -- especially if your goal isn't to assume the role (i.e., overthrow) whoever is coming from you but to get yourself, your family, and ideally your property away. (I've got a 5.56 semi-auto as well, but it's mostly for the purpose of being able to use cheaper and more readily available ammunition for recreational shooting and not bruising my shoulder after a range trip, while using a calibre that's still more fun/practical than .22lr)
As for taking money without your permission -- no matter how you look at it, it's going to happen (whether via income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, taxes on investment income, etc...). Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and company aren't exactly socialists: when they advocate these programs, their goals are to increase individual liberty and decrease state intervention in our lifetimes (rather than pine for a utopian anarcho-capitalist future). I'd rather that money go directly to the poor than to bureaucratic middlemen and rent-seeking corporations (most of the existing welfare programs) or middle classes who don't believe they (or perhaps their neighbours) are sufficiently competent to make their own retirement investments or choose the right health insurance plan for themselves (ACA, medicare, SS, etc...). I find the various paternalistic mandates (SS, ACA) to be more onerous than payments for the truly poor (some of whom as result of structural unemployment).
Replacing programs like SNAP and medicaid with a cash handout aren't going to increase existing tax rates, which seem to be the equilibrium as far as taxation goes -- higher taxes on the upper brackets (or on investment income) won't be accepted by the elites with political power, while increasing taxes in the lower brackets won't gather sufficient votes. They might actually decrease the tax rates by reducing bureaucracy.
I don't think "pay enormous cost for a 20 year old firearm, get permission from the local law enforcement (which won't be granted to anyone in California who isn't a Hollywood producer), wait for the federal paper work for several months, pay additional fees" is "perfectly".
Even prior to 1986 FOPA amendment, the number of people who actually owned such firearms was low -- but then again, they were only used in two crimes, in both cases by police officers. Most people who take advantage of this are collectors and movie makers.
As for me, I'll pass on jumping through enormous hoops only to buy a machine that turns money into noise: ask a member of the US armed forces how many times he's actually used the M4 or M16 in fully auto or even burst as opposed to semi-auto. This is reflected in the M16/AR-15 design: they aren't designed for "spray and pray", they're designed for carefully aimed and disciplined fire in semi-auto mode (with occasional full-auto bursts for supressive fire or against metal armour).
> I personally think not. Is there really a difference between hand grenades and automatic rifles? Again, I personally think not.
Well for starters, go to a range that rents automatics (like one in Las Vegas), shoot a fully automatic rifle, and then put it down. Then, pull the pin on a hand-grenade, drop the hand-grenade next you, and then stand in place :-) [No, I don't actually encourage you to do this]. Or you may want to consider why police cruisers have rifles (albeit semi-automatics) but not (explosive) grenades -- rifles are person-to-person weapons, grenades are effectively area/anti-materiel weapons. (Random note: When I lived in USSR, my school PE classes actually included "grenade toss" -- you'd toss a stick grenade filled with inert substance -- as a sport; it's quite challenging.)
I think the difference is immense, they're completely different kinds of weapons -- first of all hand grenades, aren't technically arms if you use the definition of arms used when the constitution was written.
They would not be protected by the second amendment even if fully automatic weapons were. Fully automatic weapons on the other hand aren't protected for the same reason "shouting fire in a crowded theater" (as much as I hate this phrase...) isn't protected, grenades are not protected for the same reason that setting fire to a theater isn't protected.
While this isn't tested, semi-auto rifles, are almost certainly protected -- as they're owned by civilians in great numbers (unlike hand grenades or automatic rifles) and compare to pistols (demonstrated per case law to be protected by second amendment) are far less frequently used in homicides (despite there being more rifles/shotguns in circulation than pistols). This certainly passes the "unusual and dangerous test" used in Heller to rule out automatic rifles, hand-grenades, missiles, nukes, etc... and all the other frequently asserted strawmen.
I'll point you at an excellent book that offers a far more nuanced reading of the second amendment than either side wants to admit -- http://www.amazon.com/Gunfight-Battle-Over-Right-America/dp/... -- including the discussion of what militia means (which is different from what it means in Switzerland, although not entirely unrelated)
> [F]irst of all hand grenades, aren't technically arms if you use the definition of arms used when the constitution was written
This is the crux of the entire argument to me. The spirit of the second amendment is to allow the citizenry to violently overthrow the federal government if they become too powerful, as a last-resort measure. The weapons that the colonists were fighting against were 3 rounds per minute muskets and single-shot cannons, not Apache attack helicopters. Is there a really a regulatory framework that could conceivably exist that would allow for ordinary, private citizens to overthrow the full might of the US military while protecting society from wanton gun violence?
> This is the crux of the entire argument to me. The spirit of the second amendment is to allow the citizenry to violently overthrow the federal government if they become too powerful, as a last-resort measure.
That's actually not the case. Militia meant "every able bodied white male and sometimes freed blacks" (a more expansive definition than eligible voters -- as there were still property qualifications for voting), who are meant to be armed with common civilian firearms they would purchase themselves. They could be asked to show up at a "muster" by the government, but the second amendment explicitly protected the individual right of militia members originally from federal government (later on, via 14th amendment, this was extended to the states as well as well as to anyone who is not a felon, mentally ill, etc...).
It certainly recognized the right to use these firearms for hunting and self-defense. The common musket at the time -- The Brown Bess -- was smooth bore with a 0.75" caliber and a bead sight, i.e., a 12 gauge shotgun. It could be loaded with buck shoot, with a musket ball, or (as very common) "buck and ball". So it served both the purposes of militia service weapon, for hunting many kinds of game (which wasn't a luxury, but often a necessity), and self-defence (against both humans and wild animals).
Ancestors of modern hand grenades ("bombs"), artillery, and so on all existed at the time -- but were not commonly owned by civilians.
Honestly, I'll go on record and say that this is good: violent overthrow of the government worked well for the American colonists precisely because they were colonists. The Monarchist loyalists could simply leave, whereas in France, they could only do so sans the head. The stakes were much smaller, so the American revolution (or really "the first American civil war") did not lead to the horrible outcomes other violent revolutions have almost exclusively lead to. Today, the results would be far far worse -- rather than a blossoming of civil liberties, it would mean revolutionary terror, followed by an even longer period of counter-revolutionary terror. If this happens, I'll definitely want to be armed, however -- to defend myself and my family from any of the factions involved in either the revolution or the counter-revolution as I make my way to the nearest port of entry of a peaceful country.
Private armies (those reading the "militia" to mean militia groups as opposed to what it actually means) are an even scarier idea. Not to Godwin this, but it reminds me of Freikorps, SA, as well as KPD/SPD armed groups, and other (sometimes state sponsored, sometimes not) street thugs of Weimar Germany.
The reason you have the firepower is because those left behind by the knowledge work revolution and living in the inland US still have sufficient political power to counter the Manhattanites and San Franciscans eager to take that firepower away ("oh no, we can't let the peons be seen carrying their icky icky AR-15s, ewww!").
The biggest pusher of gun control in the United States is Mike Bloomberg -- he also happens to be a fairly enthusiastic defender of Wall Street. In his mind it makes perfect sense: why would the elites arm themselves directly, if they can just isolate themselves in Manhattan and Pacific Heights, protected by an armed police state. His gun control support (which seems to be back firing so far) is a great way for him to score brownie points many liberals (who would otherwise be diametrically opposed to most of his positions) without actually proposing any laws that would inconvenience the top 1-0.1% of the population.
I'd imagine the Swiss voters (who are voting for this) are laughing extra hard; upon completion of their militia service, they're able buy their service rifle (SIG 552) for $35 (the cost of converting it to a semi-automatic) -- the US-export equivalent (SIG 556) costs in excess of $1800 and cannot be purchased by those in New York or CT (and without significant alterations, in California), the states where quasi-technocratic elites dominate politics: they "know" what's best for the lowest classes (hence support of paternalistic programs like SNAP as well as individual mandates like social security and ACA), they also "know" what's the best for you to defend yourself.