Don't worry for they'll work their way down to you and me. Felons can't own guns. We don't need to ban guns! All we need to do is to figure ways to make all the gun owners into felons.
Unfortunately many are blind to this, and buy into the whole "we just need stricter laws, not restrictions on law abiding citizens" argument. Which is often just a reactive defensive deflection. It sounds good, and it promotes our rights.
However supporting the turning of every minor thing into several serious crimes as a way to defend our rights is not very smart.
It is just a matter of time in such an environment that a minor mistake, say perhaps improper storage, transportation of (firearm), or walking through the doorway of the wrong building with your CCW and bam, you are on the other side of the law.
Suddenly all those minimum sentences, dozens of enhancements, and loss of several rights, resulting in you being sent to some for profit prison that treats you awful and never paroles you because you make them money will suck.
You wanted to be tough on crime, because you knew you would never be one of those criminals, but with the laws filling books that require a whole lifetime profession to read through it could turn on you one day.
But hey, you took that gun through the wrong doorway. You did the crime (crimes, can't forget how the same action can be charged as 20 different things.)
Holding criminals accountable for what they do and what punishments they should recieve, and citizens having the means to defend themselves not be infringed on by government are two seperate issues. Combining them is a mistake.
England once had the death penalty for all violent crime, and life in prison for many non violent crimes. They still had crime.
By the time they were settling Australia you could get many years for even the slightest offense. Just being occused of petty theft of something inexpensive by a landowner could result in a long prison sentence. Hard labor many died from during such sentences etc.
I remember one case where two poor pre-teen girls made another girl take off some of her clothes because they liked the clothing. That was technicaly robbery, so both little girls were sentenced to death.
Yet England still had lots of crime then.
So defend gun rights. But remember that handing too much power over your rights to government by supporting tons of strict laws and punishments is not a good policy either.
Or it won't be long before much of the population is a criminal convicted of one minor offense or another, with a loss of many rights. What good are guaranteed rights if they no longer apply to anyone the government does not want them to?
For all you know simply having most firearms may one day in of itself be a major criminal offense, like it is in the UK. You sure wouldn't be proud of supporting increasingly harsh penalties and enhancements that add up to much of your life behind bars just for being found with a gun then would you?
Oh right, you will never ever even possibly commit any crime, even those that don't exist in law yet.
