BW1911 wrote:If there were a general ban (hypothetically) the first few folks arrested for possession at some checkpoint (similar to airline terminals, now) would be publicized heavily, most folks would generally stop carrying (and start burying?!?), and the "easy" seizures would dry up pretty fast.
I don't disagree - you would see an ever-spiralling war of countermeasure vs. counter-countermeasure. Much like how the drug war has worked for the last seven decades. (But don't forget, there are plenty of stupid people out there, so the supply of fresh meat wouldn't run out completely for a very long time, if ever.)
Based on that debacle, I have little doubt that if the government ever maneuvers itself into a real war on guns, they wouldn't give up no matter how futile it is.
mamabearCali wrote:One thing about it though, when everything is illegal, nothing is.
This is an excellent point, often ignored by the opposition. If they were to ban all semiautos, which is an oft-expressed dream of theirs, then the difference between a semiauto and a full auto, in terms of consequence, is nothing. May as well have a fully-capable gun instead of a neutered one, at that point. Throw on a silencer as well, since you're already letting the genie out of the bottle.
It's not like the old days, where you needed large, complicated machines to make modern firearms (as opposed to doing it the Afghan way). There are many, many hobbyists out there with the tools to make modern firearms relatively easily in their garages. The intertubes gives them all the technical info they need.
Hard gun control is not really possible, but that has never stopped the opposition from anything before. Failing just means they didn't try hard enough - and to them, trying harder means bigger body counts.
It's a place we really don't want to end up.
