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You know, I can and have provided objective, logical reasons as to why a person might "need" a so-called "assault weapon" in the past. I am increasingly coming to the conclusion, however, that such an argument is beside the point and comes down to a red herring designed to distract us from the true issue at hand. The real question is why we should have to justify our rights not being taken away. It seems to me that our system of government was purposely designed to place the burden of proof upon those who wish to take rather than those who wish to keep. Morgan and his ilk cannot win a debate in which they must defend their own position, so they attempt to make us defend ours instead.
What we should be arguing is that Morgan and other people who wish to abridge our rights bear the burden of proving that their proposed restrictions represent a great enough benefit to public safety to justify the loss of liberty that they entail. Of course, Morgan and his ilk don't want to debate on those terms because the facts are not on their side.
Credible studies including those by the National Institute of Justice have found that so-called "assault weapons" are very rarely used in crimes to begin with and that their prohibition has no significant effect on violent crime. It is for this reason that gun banners resort to emotionally fueled arguments like "if it can save just one child, then it's worth it" but even that doesn't fly because we can just as easily show examples of children whose lives have been spared because either they or someone who cares about them was able to stop a violent criminal with a firearm.
Rather than trying to justify to Piers Morgan why we should be able to own an AR-15, Piers Morgan should be trying to justify to us why we shouldn't be able to own said gun. Because Piers Morgan wants to take away our rights, the burden of proof lies upon him rather than us.
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