A few years ago, there was an attack on a school in my country where the perpetrator killed three people and then suicided-by-cop. His weapon of choice? A sword. Another few years back, a man packs a suitcase full of guns and ammo, and murders 67 kids on an island. Both countries have comparable gun laws, in that permit for a purpose is required. Had he been armed with a sword, do you think 67 kids would have died that day? Or how about in Las Vegas? Could the perpetrator have killed 60 people by firing arrows from a crossbow blindly at 1200 feet away? Even as a marksman, it would have been quite the feat to hit that many targets with fatal precision from that range and angle with that kind of lighting.
I could go on and on. Christchurch, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Columbine. Guns vastly amplify the destructive capabilities of a person with intent. I'm not of the opinion that gun ownership necessarily needs to be completely outlawed. But it should be a privilege, not a right. When the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment, they must have either underestimated our ability to craft so much more effective weaponry, or simply assumed that people would adapt to the times. But we're struggling to do that. There are for example no legitimate reasons for an individual to possess an assault rifle, wouldn't you say?
