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Reasonable, Common Sense Regulation
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs -+at+- hotmail.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

First of let me state clearly that about the only weapons civilians shouldn't be allowed to own are thermonuclear explosives exceeding five megatons ( about right for penetrating Far West Texas caliche and blasting out medium large mesquite roots). Unfortunately the US government disagrees with me and has somewhat stricter rules. Advocates of these rules claim they are only asking for "reasonable, common sense gun control." Lovers of freedom claim that gun control is semantically equivalent to victim disarmament.

Interestingly enough every time someone starts spouting off about RCSGC they talk about restricting gun rights. So maybe it's time we asked for reasonable common sense relaxations of gun restrictions.

The first is to outlaw the use of excessively sensitive primers when testing if semiautomatic weapons have been illegally modified to fire full auto. The BATF first started this scam in the 1970's and is using it again in the Olafson case. Minimum strike force to detonate a primer in ammo used for evidence in such cases must be defined by law. Furthermore defense lawyers must present when the tests presented in court are carried out and be provided samples of the ammo used for testing. Also the expended cases must be turned over to defense to determine if overly thin skinned primers or primers filled with chemicals more sensitive to detonation were used in the test.

Secondly, treating guns with worn parts waiting to be repaired or which have been retired due to age as weapons illegally modified into machine guns has to be ended. "Doubling" by semiauto weapons and double barreled shotguns is an unsafe condition. The burden of proof that a person is deliberately using a weapon in unsafe condition to operate it illegally as a machine gun should be on the government.

Finally, the manufacture and importation of fully automatic weapons for sale to qualifying citizens should be re-legalized. Between the passage of the 1933 Gangster Weapons Act and the 1986 ban of manufacturing new machine guns for transfer to civilians there was perhaps one murder committed with a legally registered machine gun, perhaps one other in the twenty years since this unconstitutional action. The 165,000 or so legally transferable firearms are either shot out or too valuable as collectors' items to be used for the circumstances that even the most rabid supporter of victim disarmament cannot deny constitute need.

Of course the right of people who do not need to be kept in prison or a mental institution to own whatever weapons their consciences and consciousness of their need permits and requires is absolute. The current pretences of the state to be able to restrict the right of people to keep and bear arms are unconstitutional, but also strictly enforceable. Those who claim this power should pass the above listed reasonable common sense laws to prove their good faith to the free people of America.

Then again, for something to be proved it must first exist.

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