Federal agents on Wednesday morning hauled more than 120 firearms, including “machine guns,” out of the Ahwatukee Foothills home of a man suspected of shooting at a campaign office for the Democratic Party three times and posting bags of white powder labeled as poison near political signs.
Jeffrey Michael Kelly, 60, was arrested on Tuesday night near his Ahwatukee Foothills home by Tempe police who, according to court documents, used surveillance footage to find the suspect.
But it should change. No one should be allowed to own weapons.
The problem with that is that everyone owns plenty of weapons.
Firearms make more sense stored at a range or hunting club, unless you live somewhere where you actually need one handy (for defense against large cats/bears for example), but pretty much everyone owns knives, rope, wire, ammonia and bleach, etc. and many own fertilizer, cars, chainsaws, and the like.
There’s absolutely no reason to store even a semiautomatic firearm at a place of residence though unless you’re rich enough to have your own security service and dedicated secure building in which to house the things. And handguns have always seemed pretty pointless to me (I’m sure someone must have a legitimate use for them that doesn’t involve aiming at people or use in a firing range, but I don’t).
As a person who has unfortunately been forced to use a firearm to defend the life of myself and my family during a break in where the guy had handcuffs etc, I read this as you telling me we should just be dead. if "you’re rich enough to have your own security service " you don’t need a weapon at all. The rest of us unfortunately may have to defend ourselves. I am aware this is only an anecdotal argument not a statistical one, but as the guy who did not have to watch unspeakable things happen to his family, I’m OK with that.
That’s just a fantasy that would require a magical wizard with near omnipotence to implement.
In reality, weapons are everywhere and millions are unregistered / unknown to authorities, in addition to the fact that tools and parts to build them are nearly ubiquitous. They will always exist regardless of legality, but we are fortunately endowed with the right to bear them so that no one is forced to be without any means of self defense.
Australia is a magical place, after all.
Fuck off.