> I own multiple firearms in .50 cal, including the vaunted Barrett. I have no qualms with people who can demonstrate safety, proficiency, and sanity being allowed to own firearms of those types.

We're not talking about that though. We're talking about liberties, and the right to bear arms, which is very much not restricted to people that can show those skills for the vast majority of the country (which is not to say the majority don't have those skills,just that it's not a requirement of ownership).

> Firearms are well defined. An RPG or landmine is not a firearm.

The liberty in question is the right to bear "arms". While firearms generally means hand-held weapons, "arms" does not. If the right to own and bear these is a liberty that people are not upset about, why, and what's the difference? What about cannons? Historical, or modern? Mortars?

I posit that people have made distinctions based on cultural norms and/or personal desire in mony cases instead of specific attributes that classify them into groups (even if the government has classified them into groups legally), and that handguns, if looked at with an open mind, might not fit into the group of what is considered acceptable (if it wasn't grandfathered in already).

> Need isn't the issue. You don't need your freedom of speech, either. You don't need your right to be secure in your papers.

But need should factor into whether something is a legal exception that is allowed. I would argue that some form of firearms are needed based on the constitution and bill of rights. I'm just not sure handguns are needed.

You may have missed one of my posts. I think we can both agree that certain people should be excluded from owning firearms. Because of the risks involved, I'm very much in favor of testing for competency, safety, security, and sanity.

Right now, we have a problem. Banning and trying to confiscate a firearm type is not a reasonable solution.

Hell, even defining pistol in a useful way is damned difficult.

If need factors into it, we don't need any of our rights. Humans survive in totalitarian regimes.

Place reasonable restrictions and work on the social issues. We both agree reasonable restrictions are a good idea. I submit that your definition of reasonable is different than my own.

It is not okay to take away my liberties because you're afraid of a statistical outlier. Yes, being an outlier sucks, but that's not a good reason to go banning things that scare you.

It's great that you said you're not sure that handguns are needed. That means you're not sure they should be prohibited. If nothing else, that gives us room for discussion.

Liberty is about having the lawful option. It's not about needs. If it were, they'd call them necessities.

> You may have missed one of my posts...

I'm not really trying to hammer you on this, I'm more testing out this argument to see how it goes. This is more to find if there's some obvious thing I'm missing.

> Right now, we have a problem. Banning and trying to confiscate a firearm type is not a reasonable solution.

Well, we already ban other types. It's not going to solve anything, but that doesn't mean it might not help in some small way.

> I submit that your definition of reasonable is different than my own.

I was just trying to figure out how you defined reasonable. It's easy for people to say "it's not reasonable" when they really mean "I don't want to think about it in a reasonable manner and explain myself". I'm not accusing you of that.

> It is not okay to take away my liberties because you're afraid of a statistical outlier.

Well, some of your liberties are already denied you, depending on interpretation. Is the important thing that they are "taken away", so you feel it, or that they are denied, in which case whether they exist right now is moot.

> If nothing else, that gives us room for discussion.

That's all this is! :) I'm not sure it would help even if it could be implemented, but I thought it was interesting to discuss.

Thanks for discussing it with me. :)