The fact that a comment like yours always appears is a large part of why we can't ever have discussions about reasonable regulations.
Hell, where I live there are people who literally argue that property owners should not be able to decide whether to permit what are essentially armed trespassers, since that might infringe on someone's "right" to be armed on your property.
Focusing on cosmetics is silly, and some advocates of restrictions would just as soon see all guns gone, but I think most people just want to see common sense applied.
I think you have not talked to many gun fans. Exceptionally few crimes have been committed with legally and privately owned fully automatic weapons, so I see absolutely no reason why those laws should be revised. Your issue is with the illegally owned guns, and I think that few gun fans would object to enforcement of those laws.
I cannot think of any crimes committed with a legally owned RPG. Clearly the regulation for RPGs that is already in place is sufficient.
Today, you can purchase an SKS from a federally-licensesd dealer after a NCIC background check. You can then take that gun home and replace the magazine with one made in the United States, and no law is broken. Replace it with an identical magazine made in Poland, though, and you've committed a felony under 18 USC § 922(r), and if convicted face up to 10 years in prison.
The laws surrounding the ownership of arms in the United States are onerous and Byzantine. I've spent a great deal of effort doing my best to comply with those laws in order to exercise a right that's protected under the federal constitution.
Forgive me if I no longer treat "But we can compromise!" as a valid argument.
I worry when Governments go out of their way to disarm their citizens; even if they're benevolent at the time, they often don't stay that way. Look up the history of disarmament in pre-WWII Germany and Russia.
It would be so nice if Americans could somehow hand in their guns. On the Old Continent, if you are upset at XY and say that XY ought to be shot, it's viewed as obvious hyperbole, because people don't shoot each other. In America, it's a threat, because the culturally acceptable thing for an upset person is to go on a rampage with a firearm. It's crazy.
Please, no talk about "personal responsibility for one's safety". It's the environment that is safe or not, and a single person is plainly incapable of defending themselves against it. In a variation on Peel's principles, it's not the individual's responsibility to shoot criminals, it's society's task to prevent crime. I'm very cynical and have found that universally whoever talks about "personal responsibility" wants to unload their responsibilities on you.
Downvoters, shoot away!
> because people don't shoot each other. In America, it's a threat, because the culturally acceptable thing for an upset person is to go on a rampage with a firearm. It's crazy.
It's crazy? No this idea of yours is. Where did you get it? Some bizarre movie?
No, in America people pretty much never shoot each other. I've heard there is this perception in other countries that you constantly have people shooting each other in America, but actually you don't. You could go your entire life and not see a gun.
> It's the environment that is safe or not
And it's safe. Not sure what that has to do with guns though. I guess the more guns people have the safer?
I think you might want to come to America and visit Texas, or some other area with greater than 50% gun ownership. You'll never feel safer.
You perception and reality are so far apart that words are not likely to convince you.
Interesting. This is technically incorrect, in a way that would leave it more misleading if corrected naively.
Any given American almost never gets shot or shot at, and any given American almost never shoots another. Partly because of the size of our population (and partly for some other reasons) it is pretty frequently the case that some American shoots another. That is not incompatible with it being not being a significant risk.
Otherwise it rather looks like, oh, say, screaming about scary terrorists using encryption as an excuse to ensure insecurity for the rest of us.