this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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There's no legal or philosophical right to a car in the Constitution
There is no legal or philosophical right to a modern firearm in the Constitution, either. The founders couldn't have predicted the ease with which a single individual could commit mass murder just 50 years later when the firearms of their time took half a minute to reload. One person alone can kill as many people in a minute with a single semi-auto rifle and sufficient ammo as over a dozen militiamen of the day. To suggest the founders intended to include modern weapons is a stretch well beyond the breaking point of reason or logic.
So you would have no problem with the government requiring proof of literacy before you can vote? After all, every child is taught how to read in school, so it's just a basic check to see if a person can comprehend the ballot.
As another person commented somewhere in this thread, the availability of weapons is at a low point historically. Back in the 1930s, a person could order a machine gun in the mail and have it shipped to their house. Until 1986, people could purchase new machine guns at their local shop after a good amount of paperwork.
You're correct that banning semi-autos would lead to reduced deaths in mass shootings, but it's just putting a bandaid over a greivous societal wound. I don't feel that enough thought is put into why people are going on suicidal rampages against children or minorities, there's just a "people be cray" attitude then they push for disarmament.
Without addressing that societal problem, I just see weapon control becoming more and more stringent in response to the unsolved problems in society. Banning Semi-autos today may reduce deaths, but it'll be lever-actions tomorrow, then bolt-actions, then knives, then vehicles.
If I were dictator, I would temporarily add semi-autos to the NFA list (along with giving them the resources to process applications promptly) to stop new sales and transfers without stricter checks. Then I would put effort into determining the causes of those rampages and fixing them.
Male socialization, political radicalization, and media contagion are three factors I think lead to these rampages, and to merely remove guns from the situation is the societal equivalent of locking someone in a padded room and declaring the problem solved.
Worse than that, it's locking everybody in a padded room. And the ones who need to be in there the most know the tricks to escape... Or hold the keys.