The constitutionality of gun restrictions is a long and complicated topic, and I could probably write about it for the entire afternoon. The efficacy of gun restrictions is another one. I’m going to lay those aside for the time being and address the point you don’t seem to see to what you call anti-gun laws.
A pocketknife is a tool. It can also be used as a weapon. A pocketknife has lots and lots of nonviolent uses. It can also be used for self defense. In a conflict between a person with a pocketknife and a person without a pocketknife, the pocket knife multiplies the ability of its wielder to use force by something between one and two: all other things being equal, given a fight between one person with a pocketknife and one person without, my money’s on the one with the pocketknife, but given a fight between one person with a pocketknife and two people without, my money’s on the two without.
(9/11 demonstrated that under the right circumstances, even a pocketknife plus a lot of surprise and confusion can be leveraged to do a lot of terrible damage, but even so, I’d be much much more comfortable on a plane if I knew terrorists and innocent people could get pocketknives aboard than if I knew terrorists and innocent people could get guns aboard.)
A pocketknife does not make it a whole lot easier to surprise people with violence, to end a fight before your victim even knows you’ve started it. Yes, you could get stabbed in the back out of the blue. But in order to use a pocket knife against you, somebody has to be within arm’s reach.
A machine gun is a tool. It probably has some uses aside from violence against humans, but its primary purpose is to kill (or at least incapacitate) other humans. It can presumably be used for defense — I suppose if you had a machine gun in your home, you might kill a burglar with it — but given that its kind of bulky and needs to be kept supplied with ammo, it’s probably better suited to uses where the wielder plans to use it in advance, like a battle in a war, or a police raid, or an ambush of the President’s motorcade, or a bank robbery.
A machine gun multiplies the amount of effective force a person can apply by a very large factor. When you add in the fact that very few people are going to be willing to be one of the first dozen or so people who die taking out an attacker, you’d need a really huge crowd of unarmed people against one person with a machine gun in order for me to bet on the crowd rather than the person with the machine gun. Moreover, a machine gun tremendously increases your ability to end a fight (and kill everybody you want to kill) before anybody has a chance to react. This means that in a world where machine guns are common, everybody has to be afraid all the time. Having a machine gun would probably have some sort of deterrrent effect, but that would be muddled and probably negated by the fact that if anybody wonders whether you may be about to use that machine gun, it’s pretty stupid for them not to shoot first (unless the penalty for honestly but mistakenly thinking you needed to defend yourself is death).
One person’s notion of the point of restrictions on gun ownership. (part 1)
A pocketknife is a tool. It can also be used as a weapon. A pocketknife has lots and lots of nonviolent uses. It can also be used for self defense. In a conflict between a person with a pocketknife and a person without a pocketknife, the pocket knife multiplies the ability of its wielder to use force by something between one and two: all other things being equal, given a fight between one person with a pocketknife and one person without, my money’s on the one with the pocketknife, but given a fight between one person with a pocketknife and two people without, my money’s on the two without.
(9/11 demonstrated that under the right circumstances, even a pocketknife plus a lot of surprise and confusion can be leveraged to do a lot of terrible damage, but even so, I’d be much much more comfortable on a plane if I knew terrorists and innocent people could get pocketknives aboard than if I knew terrorists and innocent people could get guns aboard.)
A pocketknife does not make it a whole lot easier to surprise people with violence, to end a fight before your victim even knows you’ve started it. Yes, you could get stabbed in the back out of the blue. But in order to use a pocket knife against you, somebody has to be within arm’s reach.
A machine gun is a tool. It probably has some uses aside from violence against humans, but its primary purpose is to kill (or at least incapacitate) other humans. It can presumably be used for defense — I suppose if you had a machine gun in your home, you might kill a burglar with it — but given that its kind of bulky and needs to be kept supplied with ammo, it’s probably better suited to uses where the wielder plans to use it in advance, like a battle in a war, or a police raid, or an ambush of the President’s motorcade, or a bank robbery.
A machine gun multiplies the amount of effective force a person can apply by a very large factor. When you add in the fact that very few people are going to be willing to be one of the first dozen or so people who die taking out an attacker, you’d need a really huge crowd of unarmed people against one person with a machine gun in order for me to bet on the crowd rather than the person with the machine gun. Moreover, a machine gun tremendously increases your ability to end a fight (and kill everybody you want to kill) before anybody has a chance to react. This means that in a world where machine guns are common, everybody has to be afraid all the time. Having a machine gun would probably have some sort of deterrrent effect, but that would be muddled and probably negated by the fact that if anybody wonders whether you may be about to use that machine gun, it’s pretty stupid for them not to shoot first (unless the penalty for honestly but mistakenly thinking you needed to defend yourself is death).