- California authorities found a man illegally owning 248 guns and 1 million rounds of ammo.
- The state attorney general said he also had 3,000 magazines and several grenades in his home.
- The guns included 11 machine guns, 133 handguns, and 60 assault rifles, authorities said.
That’s an idiotic point of view. There aren’t “criminals” and “non-criminals”. Virtually everybody is a criminal, it’s just that most people only break minor laws, like running red lights, infringing copyrights, littering, etc. Those people don’t break other laws because the risk vs. reward calculation doesn’t work out for them.
Even a big criminal like Donald Trump who has broken dozens if not hundreds of laws isn’t out shooting people because that’s not the kind of crime he does.
There isn’t some magic switch that turns someone from “honest citizen” to “criminal”, it’s a whole spectrum of law breaking. Even that old lady who goes to church every day probably goes faster than the speed limit, parks illegally, etc. For someone in the middle of the spectrum, say someone who cheats on their taxes, tries to scam old church-going ladies out of their money, etc. there are kinds of crimes they’ll do, and other kinds of crimes they won’t do.
Way at the criminal end of the spectrum, you have people who commit violent crimes. But, not every violent crime involves a gun. Muggers and carjackers don’t always use guns because the extra punishment is a slight deterrent. So, the law deters them. However, since the US is a society of gun nuts, it doesn’t offer as much of a deterrent as it would in some place like the UK or Japan.