"Present gun laws allow for millions and millions of highly dangerous weapons to flood our society."

Of the 350,000,000 estimated guns presently in the US, HOW MANY are used illegally, and why are the laws against that use NOT enforced?



" People with all sorts of antisocial agendas can and do legally purchase weapons that can and do kill large numbers of innocent people."

I disagree- in almost all cases, there is a violation of the law, and the person SHOULD NOT have had access to firearms. But should the failure of the police and government agencies ( that are the ones who will "protect" you when only the criminals have guns) mean that law-abiding citizens must have their rights removed? If they cannot stop the criminals from getting guns, how can I expect them to protect me and my family? They have stated that they are NOT responsible for ensuring citizen's safety.

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Warren v. District of Columbia is one of the leading cases of this type. Two women were upstairs in a townhouse when they heard their roommate, a third woman, being attacked downstairs by intruders. They phoned the police several times and were assured that officers were on the way. After about 30 minutes, when their roommate's screams had stopped, they assumed the police had finally arrived. When the two women went downstairs they saw that in fact the police never came, but the intruders were still there. As the Warren court graphically states in the opinion: "For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of their attackers."

The three women sued the District of Columbia for failing to protect them, but D.C.'s highest court exonerated the District and its police, saying that it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." [4] There are many similar cases with results to the same effect. [5]

In the Warren case the injured parties sued the District of Columbia under its own laws for failing to protect them. Most often such cases are brought in state (or, in the case of Warren, D.C.) courts for violation of state statutes, because federal law pertaining to these matters is even more onerous. But when someone does sue under federal law, it is nearly always for violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983 (often inaccurately referred to as "the civil rights act"). Section 1983 claims are brought against government officials for allegedly violating the injured parties' federal statutory or Constitutional rights.

The seminal case establishing the general rule that police have no duty under federal law to protect citizens is DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services. [6] Frequently these cases are based on an alleged "special relationship" between the injured party and the police. In DeShaney the injured party was a boy who was beaten and permanently injured by his father. He claimed a special relationship existed because local officials knew he was being abused, indeed they had "specifically proclaimed by word and deed [their] intention to protect him against that danger," [7] but failed to remove him from his father's custody.

The Court in DeShaney held that no duty arose because of a "special relationship," concluding that Constitutional duties of care and protection only exist as to certain individuals, such as incarcerated prisoners, involuntarily committed mental patients and others restrained against their will and therefore unable to protect themselves. "The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf." [8]
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"This happens and has been happening regularly for years. "

The number of cases where "assault rifles( your term)" kill people is orders of magnitude less than the number killed by misuse of automobiles- so why not restrict cars and alcohol and save more lives ? ( See Prohibition for how effective that is- a pity that History is no longer required for a "liberal" education)
And it is more likely that a student will be killed by a lightning strike than by a semi-automatic rifle of any sort.




"I believe we should legislate rational limits to the type of weapons private citizens can own, just as we regulate and limit other sorts of dangers within our society. "

I agree- but we differ on what are rational and EFFECTIVE limits.