TTAG reader Dale clocked theatlantic.com‘s Guns for Hunting People Are Different: Legislation Should Reflect That and asked “So now we’re hunting people?” His email drew our attention to this excerpt: “In most states, it is illegal to hunt animals or birds with more than six rounds in a rifle or three in a shotgun. Why? Because if you can’t kill within those limits you need remedial marksmanship (of the sort NRA Executive Vice President Wayne R. La Pierre might require to bring reportedly poor marksmanship up to snuff).”
Dale begs to differ. “Um, no, the idea is to give some of the game a chance to get away so that it can replenish. And it just gets worse from there.” Allow me….
Assault rifles are rifles of mass destruction. We shouldn’t be trying to make it safe to have them on the street. It’s too late for that. We need to restrict homicide weapons to those licensed to hunt humans, in law enforcement and the military.
Like most gun grabbers, Charles R. Eisendrath doesn’t understand that a weapon of mass destruction is, by definition, indiscriminate. A firearm — any firearm — s an aimed weapon. A person with a gun can inflict tremendous carnage, they can “spray and pray,” but a firearm is not in the same class as a bomb or chemical weapon.
At the same time, any weapon can be, by its nature, a “homicide weapon.” Also noting that any solid object can become a weapon (e.g. a table lamp, car, baseball bat, beer bottle).
As for restricting AR ownership to entities “licensed to hunt humans” I don’t think that means what Eisendrath thinks it means. Yet. Thankfully. In any case, Eisendrath needs to spend a little time thinking about how modern police states arise and what happens to disarmed civilians’ life, liberty and pursuit of happiness during its reign.
Despite owning firearms, Einsendrath is clueless about why other folks do so. Which leads to some fairly convoluted logic (or a total lack thereof).
Do I favor handguns’ remaining legal? Yes, except for the kind that are really assault rifles without stocks. For one thing, the huge sales boom in pistols represents a whole nation’s understandable lunge for self-defense, largely against bad guys with the assault weapons we hear about all to often. For that reason, keeping the option open for handguns, at least for now, may make it easier to eliminate assault rifles. It also weakens the argument that by eliminating civilian war weapons we would disarm law-abiders to the advantage of outlaws. We should start with the main threat. When people feel less fearful, they may buy fewer pistols, too.
How great is that? An understandable lunge for self-defense that shouldn’t be realized with the purchase of one of the most effective weapons of self-defense ever created by hand of man? What is Eisendrath smoking?
More to the point, why did The Atlantic publish this tripe? Perhaps it’s because they don’t know any better. Or perhaps it’s because they think they do.