Sorry it’s taking so long to reply- I’m really busy before Shavuos. I know you took the time to respond and I appreciate that.
I’m not trying to offend you but I’m getting the impression that your making your opinions sound like facts. It may be your opinion that the advantages of banning all automatic weapons far outweighs the disadvantages but there are strong opinions to the contrary.
There are numerous situations where one could use (or could have used) automatic weapons- thankfully as you said they are extremely rare. You can’t just look at one situation- you need to look at the sum of all situations. You may very well be correct that the number of lives that have been saved (or that could have been saved) is less than the amount of lives lost but it is something that needs to be taken into account.
In your opinion there’s no good reason to have so many big guns. Do you think the Yidden in Europe would have benefited from having lots of big guns? How about the Yidden who lived in the Old City during the siege in 1948?
I’m not sure what I wrote that’s near-verbatim to the talking points of the NRA. I simply stated that if law abiding citizens need to give up their legally purchased firearms then criminals will have less fear breaking into their homes. It’s something I realized on my own, it makes logical sense to me and you haven’t explained why you feel that it’s incorrect.
Smoking may have gone down significantly over the past 20 years (luckily I live in a community where smoking is virtually nonexistent) but I’m not sure what your point is. (Are you trying to say that things change from one generation to the next?) Did the smokers all die early and the next generation not want to suffer? Did they switch to cigars or e-cigs? As I stated before- if automatic weapons become illegal it’ll be harder to obtain one illegaly but it’ll still be possible for those who really want one. You haven’t explained how banning them will force anyone who already has one illegaly to surrender it or prevent additional ones from being smuggled through the open border.
You can not compare the US to other civilized countries without comparing all relevant parameters. In my opinion the judicial system here is a joke and violent criminals have nothing to fear. If you’re going to compare the US rates of violence to Somalia- let’s see what they have in common. If I had to guess I don’t think the people there have to fear any repercussions for being violent- similar to the US. If the US had strict gun rules and anyone caught with an illegal weapon was sent to prison for 25 years- no questions asked- then maybe the violence would go down, a typical homeowner would have no reason to have a weapon and I’d side with you on banning them.
You imply that the cities with strict gun controls are safer- I’m going to disagree with you on that based on what’s going on in Chicago, New York and many other Democratic run cities. And again- if someone was intent on carrying out a mass murder there are plenty of other ways to go about it- it may not be as easy but they will get it done anyway.
At this point- if you still not convinced of the validity of my opinion (not that you agree- just admit that there is a different side) I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
On the subject of mental illness- it will take a huge investment to try and find the dangerous ones but having the social media giants look for them as opposed to Conservatives may be a good start. Many mass shooters do post their intentions online beforehand and could have been stopped had they been reported, investigated and locked up.
In conclusion- In my opinion, the world would be a better place without dangerous weapons but banning guns is not the correct way to go about it. The place to start is to make criminals fear breaking the law (e.g. stiff prison sentences) and keeping an eye on those with a mental illness. Until then guns are a necessary evil.