OK, I'll participate in the debate, under certain conditions. Let's not be babbling about swimming pools, or ladders, or cars. Let's not be selectively quoting or creatively interpreting words written in the 18th century. In other words, if you want a straightforward debate about whether or not, or under what circumstances, private citizens should be allowed to own and carry firearms, that's a debate I'm willing to participate in, taking the anti-gun point of view, which I reiterate I oppose.
1. A gun is a dangerous instrumentality. Guns can kill people. For that matter, guns are purpose-designed to kill animals, including human beings. Guns are singularly effective in doing so, which is why every army in the world is equipped primarily with guns, rather than swords, bows and arrows, or axes.
2. Society, represented by the government, has the authority and duty to control the distribution and use of dangerous instrumentalities. This is why you cannot go into your local hardware store and buy dynamite over the counter. To be licensed to acquire and use dynamite, you have to prove that you have a legitimate purpose for doing so, and sufficient expertise to do so relatively safely. Same with cars. Despite the many, many positive, salutary, and necessary uses for cars, you are not free to just go buy one and drive it around. You must be licensed, and your car will be subject to a variety of regulations and controls for the safety of the public.
3. There are limited legitimate uses for guns. Hunting is legitimate. Target shooting is semi-legitimate, but falls more into the "because I feel like it" category than anything else. So, just as you cannot buy dynamite and blow it up in your backyard because you feel like it, the "target shooting" and "collecting" aspects of gun ownership are insufficient to justify complete freedom in owning them.
4. Another legitimate use of guns is defense of your home and person. Here I point out that generally the best gun for home defense is a shotgun.
5. In the U.S., guns kill approximately 33,000 people per year. Approximately one-third of those deaths are homicides, the remainder being suicides and accidents. 33,000 deaths per year are a sufficient cause for the state to take an interest in the public safety, and to regulate a dangerous instrumentality that causes 33,000 deaths per year.
Therefore, I recommend the following:
a. No one may acquire, possess, or carry any firearm without license from the state.
b. No one except agents of the state may acquire, possess handguns, which are responsible for the large majority of gun deaths per year, and have no legitimate purpose that cannot be served by a long gun.
c. No gun owned by a private citizen may hold more than six rounds of ammunition. I'd go with five, but six is traditional, many revolvers would have to be extensively modified to hold less than six, and the difference is minimal. No private citizen may own a firearm that is fed from a detachable, box magazine (commonly called a "clip") because the speed and ease with which such guns are reloaded facilitates mass shootings, and because it is vanishingly unlikely that hunting or home defense will be significantly facilitated by the ability to fire more than six rounds, or to reload quickly and easily. As I'm sure you're aware, it is generally illegal to hunt with more than three, or in some cases five, rounds in your gun, even if it can hold more. It's a safety measure.
d. No citizen may acquire, possess, or carry a gun without being licensed to do so. Licensure will involve a criminal and mental health background check, proficiency training and testing, and a test of the applicant's knowledge of the law of deadly force. Licenses must be renewed every four or five years, and can be rescinded by the licensing authority. If a license is rescinded, the licensee shall have an opportunity to argue against rescission before a neutral authority.
e. Every gun acquired or possessed legally must be registered with the police to aid in investigation and prosecution of crimes.
f. No private citizen shall be permitted to carry a gun in public, concealed or unconcealed, unless permitted to do so, such permission being for good cause shown and discretionary to the police.
g. Unregistered guns shall be contraband, with no property rights attached. Police may seize apparently unregistered guns without accompanying arrest or charges, and after a brief hearing on their status, all unregisterd guns shall be destroyed.
At at minimum, this will make killing harder. Accordingly, there should be fewer homicides, suicides, and accidents. The proposed system will allow for legitimate hunting and home defense.
I realize that some of these provisions seem mutually exclusive, like my "six rounds per gun" provision for handguns is mutually exclusive with my ban on handguns. In such cases, please assume that they are "in the alternative," i.e., a handgun ban with a backup that if handguns are not banned, they should be limited to six rounds.
Clearly, this ends the argument before it even starts. I don't think it can be seriously argued that minimizing guns in the manner I have outlined will reduce gun violence, and because deadly violence is so much harder without guns, will reduce deadly violence.
The only remaining question is "Is the ability to defend oneself outside the home, and the general freedom interest in owning guns, sufficient to allow their widespread, unregulated possession and carriage?" That question will be answered yes or no, and people aren't going to move off their answers. It's kinda like "Is abortion murder?" It's not really worth arguing, since you aren't going to change anybody's mind.
