We Should Not Ban Assault Weapons or High Capacity Magazines

Firstly, I want to end one of the most common arguments against guns and especially assault weapons. It is what I call the Purpose of Guns Argument. Purpose of Guns Argument: 1. Objects designed to inflict harm should not be created or possessed. 2. Guns (or assault weapons) are designed to inflict harm. 3. Guns (or assault weapons) should not be created or possessed. This arguments fails for a couple reasons. Premise 2 (P2) is fails because the purpose of any object is up to opinion. Some say the AR-15 is an assault weapon, others say it's the civilian issued version of the M16 and doesn't possess the military features that makes it an assault rifle. Ultimately it's simply people's opinions and creates and endless, pointless cycle. The main reason the Purpose of Guns argument fails is because P1 is false, or at least flawed. In the end, it does not matter what an object was designed for, all that matters is how it's used. An example could include tasers: tasers were designed to reduce the number of times police had to use lethal force in apprehending a suspect. All they did was reduce the amount of pepper spray used, and have been documented as being used when less painful methods would have been suitable as well as to torture captured convicts. (Please note I do not believe we should ban tasers, but we do need to better regulate their usage). See http://socialistworker.org... Therefore, the purpose of an object does not matter, only how it's used (something I'm sure we will agree on). Next, let's address the flaws of the proposed assault weapons ban. For a complete list of the definitions of the 1994 Assault Weapons ban, see http://en.wikipedia.org.... The majority of the features that make a gun an assault weapon are purely cosmetic, such as pistol grips and flash hiders (neither of which would make much of a difference in a mass shooting). The only features that make an assault rifle, pistol, or shotgun any more deadly than any other semi-automatic weapon is the fact that they can except high capacity magazines, are able to hold a large number of bullets, or perhaps the grenade launcher (It is however illegal to own explosive grenades). NOTE: The proposed 2013 Assault Weapons Ban used the same 1994 definitions but with a one feature instead of a two feature test. Therefore for the rest of this debate, we must discuss banning weapons based on their capability to inflict harm, i.e. semi-automatic rifles (as far as I'm concerned, you can hunt just fine with a bolt-action rifle), and high capacity magazines/weapons. I will still call them assault weapons to keep it simpler. The next most common argument I've heard against these weapons and magazines is why would anyone NEED an assault weapon or high capacity magazines (which is typically returned with defense against tyranny, but let's ignore that). Contrary to what many people believe, the demonized AR-15 can actually serve as a better defensive weapon for some people than a shotgun can (it's easier to handle and has more built in safety features), but most people use shotguns mainly because their cheaper. However this argument itself is also flawed, because it dictates someone must NEED an assault weapon. We live in a society which values liberty, and one of the core aspects of liberty (from the philosophical perspective) is that you have a right to own anything you want until proven otherwise, or that by owning that object or by allowing people to possess that object more people are being harmed. And if owning that object is harming others, you would have to show that enough rights are being violated to outweigh the property rights of others. For example, no one NEEDS a tv, but they're not harming anyone else by owning one, and thus they have a right to own a TV. Does Owning Assault Weapons and High Capacity Magazines Create More Harm? Now we must weigh benefits vs. harms vs. rights. First let's address high capacity magazines. If we examine the results of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban (see https://www.ncjrs.gov...), we find that around 16%-25% of crimes utilize high capacity magazines, but whether or not all the bullets were fired is unspecified. If you go to the Brady Campaign website, go to studies and reports, and read through all the incidents involving assault weapons (I did, it was a pain), you'll find that when assault weapons were used, roughly 16% of the incidents involved cases where more than 10 shots were fired (including where no one was hurt), and about 1% involved more than 75 shots. Therefore a very small fraction of crimes utilize high capacity magazines to their full extent, and we must weigh this against the number of times a law-abiding citizen uses more than 10 shots to defend themselves. Ultimately, we don't really know if having high capacity magazines would save more lives during mass shootings (while the shooter reloads) or if it would lead to MORE innocent deaths. What is apparent is that, at best, it's not going to be very many, and given the durability of magazines it may take more than 50 years before we can start to detect any changes. Given the uncertain and extremely small potential return weighed vs. the property rights of the millions of gun owners, we shouldn't ban high capacity magazines. Next, let's evaluate banning assault weapons, which now we can boil down to simply talking about semi-automatic rifles, since I've previously argued for high capacity magazines. What can a semi-automatic rifle accomplish that a pistol cannot? I've talked to a few soldiers, and it mainly comes down to ease of handling, range, accuracy, and (depending upon the rifle) firepower. Range isn't going to affect someone's ability to commit a mass shooting since they tend to happen in closer quarters. Accuracy mainly ties into range, and at close quarters it's not going to make a large difference, if any. Ease of handling, again they may be inconvenienced but they could still accomplish the same shooting with a semi-automatic pistol, so we're left with firepower. How many extra people are killed by having larger bullets, and how does that weigh against the property rights of gun owners? If it doesn't than we shouldn't ban them, if it does then we should ban the rifles that fire the larger bullets (bullets that can't be quickly fired out of handguns), but the AR-15 may not be among them. (The AR-15 fires the 5.56 NATO or .223 Remington, which sometimes have even less stopping power than other, such as a 45 ACP). So if we ban these semi-automatic rifles, we violate the property rights of millions of Americans for a very small (and potentially no) positive net gain. Therefore, given the property rights of gun owners and the small, and potentially zero or negative net gains from banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, we should not ban either.