(x-post from LBN) AG Maura Healey: We will win gun lawsuit

[benEzra]

15. Given that 50-60 million people own semiauto rifles,

I think the fact that they kill *fewer* people than shotguns, revolvers, knives, clubs, and even bare hands---making them among the least misused of all weapons---demonstrates that the obsession with rifle stock styling, and criminalizing responsible ownership thereof, is wrongheaded and counterproductive.



As to the nukes analogy, a .22 caliber non-automatic civilian rifle is many orders of magnitude less dangerous than a nuke, both in terms of storage and in terms of accidental or intentional misuse. I think banning alcohol is a better analogy than nuclear weapons, since alcohol and guns are both popular consumer products that are commonly enjoyed by a substantial fraction of the population, but with a very small percentage of misuse as well, and which a minority wish to outlaw on moral or pragmatic grounds---except that alcohol kills about 250 times as many people annually as rifles do.

As to banning only modern firearms, I don't think you'd really be OK with us owning guns from the 1830s through the 1870s either, since rate of aimed fire with a lever-action is pretty comparable to that of a modern semiauto, and I believe pumps go back to the mid-1800s as well.