nerdtasticnerdgasm:

As young people across the country prepare for the national walkouts in March and April, and other methods of Civil Disobedience, here’s a primer on gun control: common arguments offered by pro-gun advocates, and responses to disarm them:

Argument: Assault weapons aren’t an actual thing. Banning
them won’t make a difference.

Answer: There is not good answer to this statement because it’s true. Classifying a firearm as an
“assault weapon” is something people who know nothing about guns do. (Every gun is a weapon used for assault, after all.) Instead,
talk about controlling semi-automatic weapons instead of ill-defined concepts like “assault
weapons”.

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Argument: The Second Amendment guarantees my right to bear
arms.

Answer: It does but there are limitations. In fact, the
individual’s right to bear arms has only existed for ten years. From 1787 until
the DC v Heller decision of 2008, the Bill of Rights has never been interpreted
to mean private citizens have a right to own guns. Even in Justice Scalia’s majority ruling, he states that there are limitations to the Second
Amendment. United States v Miller establishes the precedent for limiting “dangerous
and unusual” weapons. My argument is that semi-automatic firearms belong in that classification.

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Argument: If a law-abiding citizens get rid of their guns,
criminals won’t follow the law and we’ll be in more danger.

Answer: This is an argument against having law: Since criminals don’t obey laws there should
be no limits on anything. Clearly this is absurd. Following the Oklahoma
City bombing, purchase of large quantities of ammonium nitrate fertilizer were
restricted, and there hasn’t been a single similar bombing since. We also outlawed
fully automatic weapons, grenades, rocket launchers, etc in the 20th Century, and see no incidents of violence with those types of weapons since. Obviously, legislation does not have to be one hundred percent effective to be helpful.

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Argument: If we ban guns, people will just use knives or
baseball bats.

Answer: Of course, they will. This happens all the time. But show me one case where a mass-knifing or -clubbing
resulted in a loss of life as great as a mass shooting.

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Argument: We need armed security guards in every school.

Answer: Do you believe security guards can’t become mass
shooters? The Texan church shooter was an Air Force vet, and the Pulse nightclub
shooter actually was a security guard. Plus it’s relatively easy to get the drop on a
security guard. Shoot him while he’s not expecting it, collect his weapon, then
just keep going. Adding more guns to schools adds more risk. It cannot possibly reduce
it.

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Argument: It’s a mental health issue, not a gun issue – OR – Guns don’t kill people, people kill
people.

Answer: The United States has the same rates of mental
illness as other developed countries, but is the only Western nation with this type of
violence. Mentally ill persons are less
likely to commit crime, which many find
surprising. In fact, those who are mentally ill are more likely to become victims of crime. Being a murderer doesn’t mean a person is mentally ill, which is why you hardly ever see successful
insanity defenses in trials. And if “people kill people” then we should stop
giving them guns, shouldn’t we? We don’t allow private F-22s or nuclear
weapons. Why? Because as a society we’ve determined that our citizens should
not have access to private killing machines.

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Argument: We, as a society, have turned our backs on God.
This is why crime is getting worse. We need God/Jesus to heal people’s hearts,
not get rid of law-abiding citizens’ guns.

Answer: Crime has
actually decreased overall in recent decades. Things are getting better, not
worse. Murder rates and violent crime overall have trended down as we’ve
advanced as a society. Mass shootings have remained steady though, because
angry people – many of whom considered themselves “right with God” – have access to guns.

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Argument: We need guns to fight against the government in
case it becomes tyrannical.

Answer: Do you really believe semi-automatic weapons will
defeat a tyrannical government employing fighter jets, bombers, tanks,
artillery, drones, advanced cyber capabilities, and nuclear weapons? If a tyrannical government decides to take you out, your guns will be worthless.

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Argument: Gun registration makes it easier for the
government to disarm us.

Answer: Registration is necessary to keep track of deadly
weapons in the event they’re ever used in a crime, or in cases where normally law-abiding citizens commit crimes that revoke their right to firearms. There are more than 300 million
privately owned guns in the United States. If the government wanted to seize every gun, they’d do it in the same way with or without a registry: by going door to door and searching every home and business.

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Source: Callista Kline, Twitter