Maybe I'm using too many words. Let me make this simple. If you want a gun for personal protection, and can pass a basic safety and competency test, then by all means you should get one. I don't want to stand in the way of that right, and I don't think government should get in the way of it either.
Here I agree
BUT
You shouldn't be allowed to have fully automatic weapons for that defense, especially in the city. These weapons fire too many bullets in a manner that is too uncontrolled. It might seem to be an advantage for you to be able to put thirty bullets in the general direction of a home intruder before he can more than blink, but I doubt you'd think so when those bullets rip through the walls to kill your family members in the adjoining room, or your neighbors in the next house or apartment.
Again true, it may be overkill for home defense, but if you can find a place to safely shoot one, and can pass the same competencies, why shouldn't this be considered?
You shouldn't be allowed to have armor piercing rounds.
I have yet to hear of any criminal who goes around wearing body armor. The only reason to use them is if your assailant is wearing armor, and that means soldiers or police. In either case, if things have gotten so bad that these sorts of people are the enemies of our citizenry, gun control laws will be the least of our concerns.
See the link above...
And you shouldn't be allowed to own a gun in the first place without showing that you understand and respect basic safety procedures about guns. You should know what a trigger lock is and how to use it. You should know what the safety does and when you should turn it off. You should know how to take your gun apart to clean or repair it. And you should know how to keep it away from children.
These are current laws, and I agree with every one of them.
And as for your issues with tazers and mace, you as much as admit that it takes a great deal of training to overcome their effects. There's a reason cops reach for their mace first when they come on an aggressive individual. Almost nobody, except those with elite military training, has the ability to do withstand it. Indeed, with appropriate training, you can learn to ignore the pain of a gunshot wound, provided it doesn't kill you in the first place. Are you prepared to guarantee that every shot you make at an assailant will be a killing shot? And from a moral perspective, wouldn't it be better to protect yourself against an attacker
without having to resort to deadly force?
A certain percentage of the population is naturally immune to the effects of these weapons, and having worked in the prison system I've seen first hand how ineffective these chemicals can be. Your average hardened criminal experiences small exposures to pepper sprays and other chemicals more often than than you would ever expect unless you'd witnessed this first hand. Many become resistant to the milder forms while in prison. Where the chemicals used are much much stronger. Pepper sprays that are available for civilian use are far less than 1/10th the strength that these hardened inmates are used to dealing with, and institutions are constantly forced to reformulate and strengthen their pepper spray of choice as the inmate population adjusts to it. As harsh as this sounds, it is true, Pepper spray can be overcome by a determined assailant, and the stuff you can buy will not stop a determined attacker.
