I also want to be clear that I don’t like guns. I know that people say all the time, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” Well, guns make that easier to do. There are a number of charts that illustrate all sorts of data about guns in this recent article. One that alarms me is that guns make suicide easier for those who are contemplating it. You will see that data in the charts. So not only do guns make it easier for people to kill other people, they make it easier for people to kill themselves.
I hear people say all the time that arming more people is the answer. The guy in Vegas killed himself when police were close. More guns would not have helped in that situation at all. Having some random citizen carrying a weapon would have made no difference in that scenario. And for those that say, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,” apparently this guy bought all of his legally. The only reason he bought so many guns was to kill as many people as he could. That sounds like a ringing endorsement for gun rights.
So even if U.S. citizens need their guns, do they really need a way to make them automatic and have massive magazine capacity? Gun rights folks tend to say yes, the average citizen needs whatever they want. Well, sometimes what we want is the very worst thing for us. I do believe that is the case here.