Yes, first they can enforce the law that bans guns [of any kind] from felons. but it won't do much good (see below).

Criminals don't usually buy their guns from a store or pawn shop.

They buy them from other sources, sources that they would have, no matter even if there was a TOTAL ban on guns.

Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Papa Ray | 05.20.06 - 12:16 pm | #

Let's not forget the real reason the Founding Fathers put the SA in there; BECUASE WE DON'T TRUST GOVERNMENTS WITH STANDING ARMIES!!! And with the growing "us vs. them" between citizens and LEOs, it wouldn't take much (of a stroke of a pen) for police to start going door-to-door and seizing guns... oh, wait, they already did, in New Orleans!
Mattexian | Homepage | 05.20.06 - 1:53 pm | #

PS The above seems like the BEST reason for private ownership of said "eeeeevil high-capacity room-spraying assault weapons! During the Rodney King riots, I don't recall seeing the Korean shopkeepers guarding their stores with Brown Bess muzzleloaders. No, they had AKs and ARs and shotguns to keep the thugs away.
Mattexian | Homepage | 05.20.06 - 2:00 pm | #

Good point about LEOs. I'm having a debate on the OU newspaper with a Chicago "detective" who believes that "civilians" shouldn't be allowed to own weapons. He says we should leave it to the police.

Don't get me wrong - I fully respect the law enforcement community, but they are NOT the persons who get to decide who owns guns and who doesn't.

The police spend more time filling out reports after the crime than they do actually preventing. They can't be everywhere at once, and we have a right to protect ourselves against bad guys.

This guy has really rubbed me the wrong way, because he places himself above "civilians." I invited him to Texas to go shooting, so he could see that some of the best shooters in the world are civilians.

His reply was hilarious. "I don't call those kind of people 'civilians', I call them 'marksmen.'" Huh?
jr | Homepage | 05.20.06 - 3:52 pm | #

Any LEO in the nation who doesn't support the Bill of Rights he swore to protect and defend needs to resign, right now.
And don't you love the JS Online's "middle ground"? There's middle ground all right, but its before the 1934 Gun Act.
Robert | 05.20.06 - 9:55 pm | #

JR,

Do you respect the law enforcement community of New Orleans? The ones who confiscated people's firearms? The ones who body slammed an old lady against the wall and took her revolver? Those cops? Those paragons of rightousness?
anonymous | 05.20.06 - 10:32 pm | #

I have family who ARE and were LEOs in NOLA. They are good and respectable people. Every department has idiots, some have higher concentrations.
jr | Homepage | 05.21.06 - 9:04 am | #

Let's compare murder rates.

Like maybe Chicago and Ft Worth?

When the bad guys fear who they are about to do evil against, the numbers change dramatically.
Dan | 05.21.06 - 7:47 pm | #

Hooray!
jms | 05.28.06 - 5:41 pm | #