We Should Not Ban Assault Weapons or High Capacity Magazines (2)

Assault WeaponsObviously, both of us agree that a team of scientists or similar figures would be necessary to determine which firearms are most deadly. I, however, disagree that true assault weapons that have little practical use in a society such as ours would be still allowed to be kept by utilitarian moral codes.Pro argues that shooting beer cans, bottles, or other items with assault weapons is fun. I agree. I also enjoy watching large explosions, like the ones on Mythbusters, but this doesn't mean I get to use explosives for fun and games. Indeed, I would say that a lot of people would like to use explosives for fun and games. Yet dynamite and plastic explosives are banned.Well, that isn't quite true. They're legal for demolition companies[1]. That makes sense, since demolition companies kind of need to use explosives like C-4 in their work. But, in common parlance, we would consider C-4 banned.Similarly, why not only allow assault weapons for licensed, thoroughly inspected shooting ranges, where the only ammunition for them was rubber bullets? Then you should shoot cans to your heart's delight. If you wanted to shoot tin cans at home, you could get an automatic paintball gun[2], which has the advantage of being next-to-impossible to accidentally kill yourself with (yes, you can get killed with a paintball gun if you get hit in the right place by a discharged air canister after it malfunctions, but to the best of my knowledge it is less common than accidentally shooting yourself to death).High Capacity MagazinesIt wasn't the only one, actually--Collin Ferguson was tackled[3]. Tackling shooters has been proposed before[4], and if done in a large enough group it can work. And even if no one tackles te shooter, a few seconds can be valuable if you want to, say, sprint over to the door and beat a hasty retreat, or find cover besides a cheap school desk.It's true that even if someone is hit they won't die right away. But:1. In the case of multiple assailents, they will likely have their own weapons, and will use them on you once you kill their buddy. If they have guns, then they will simply aim and fire. If they have melee weapons, then to get all of them without them closing and getting you, they really need to be at a distance.2. If the offender is high on drugs, that still doesn't mean that you need a high-capacity magazine to neutralize them, especially if you are using hollow-point rounds.3. If you do actually miss that much, then you have really bad aim.Now, I'll grant that that only makes it unlikely for a high capacity magazine to be necessary, but according to utilitarianism, it's perfectly justifiable to sacrifice one person to save two. So, to justify the legality of assault rifles and high capacity magazines, they have to save more lives than are sacrificed.We don't know exactly how many people are killed by assault weapons and HCMs. It's difficult, because murder by rifle isn't separated by make of rifle. But we do know that they are often used in mass shootings, and when they are they kill more people[5]. Has my opponent any evidence to show that more people have been saved than killed by assault weapons and HCMs?And while I certainly agree that there are more efficient ways to save lives, I take the approach that people, and by extension the government they form, have an obligation to help as many people as possible. Unless saving people via the ban would bankrupt us, I would regard money as fairly insignificant. http://wiki.answers.com... http://www.dropzonepaintball.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.thedailybeast.com... http://www.washingtonpost.com...