subgenius wrote:So your notion for why a rifle should be illegal is not supported by the same sort of evidence and statistics that our society uses to make stuff illegal.
To be precise, he was talking about semi-automatic rifles. You are right that people obtain illegal items, but these illegal items are much harder to come by.
Gun manufacturers are fairly clever and they might try to get around a semi-automatic rifle ban by equipping handguns with drum magazines. So while it may make it harder to hit victims from a hotel balcony, shooters could still take out many people at close range - thus fulfilling the great gun wheel of life and not compromising sales.