That's not entirely fair (though there is some of that in my arguing, sure). My concern with the law is specifically this:
"What's the point in forbidding the rending of these guns into scrap metal except as a way to gain favor in the eyes of the gun-rights advocates and to deliver another defeat to the gun-control advocates?"
That is, I simply don't see anything other than politics as being worth the trouble to go through the entire legislative process to prevent one method of dealing with confiscated/bought-back guns.
But there's no reason to rend them into scrap metal when they can be sold elsewhere or stripped down for spare parts, even sent back to their respective companies. The only reason why you would choose to melt the guns, provided that they aren't taking up too much space or costing lots of money to store or being bothersome, is because you're guilty of having the same unhealthy, spiteful attitude as you accuse gun nuts of having. And they do, in my opinion.
The previous state of affairs in NC and the current state of affairs in ≈49 other states is that turning the guns into raw materials is OK. My issue is that there's not enough reason to
change this status. I'm not arguing it's the best option, as I've said before in my description of more nuanced forms of the law I'd be fine with.
I'm not trying to lead a crusade to smelt all guns, though arguing for that option can easily make you look that way. I'm simply not seeing any good reason for a blanket ban on all gun destruction.
No, you aren't. You said to me that you preferred the default to be melting the guns. That isn't the same as just being against a blanket ban on all gun destruction because I'm also against a blanket ban on all gun destruction.
That was not my description of my opinion, but my description of how I want the nuanced law to work. See:
For what it's worth I've been saying I'd be OK with a "protect historical guns" law. Where you and I differ is that I would go for default melting OK, exceptions to prevent it. You would instead go for default melting not OK, exceptions to allow it.
It was me describing the differences between an opt-out vs. opt-in program (default-smelt vs. default-no-smelt). My preference takes the status quo in a majority of the US and adds "but don't smelt these" exceptions. Alternatively, your preference changes the status quo on the topic and then adds "but you
can smelt these" exceptions. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough on what I was describing there earlier.
And finally, maybe I
do have a spiteful attitude towards gun-rights nuts. I'm zarking sick and tired of the blind idiocy with which the leadership of the NRA fights to give every man, woman, and child a handgun, because after all "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Oh and by the way background checks in particular and gun control laws in general are useless because bad guys would find ways to get around the law (well no duh). So
of course some of my objection is caused by a wish that the NRA dies in a collapse of their own cache of M16s. But not all of it.
None of that last paragraph directed at you of course, Owlbread, because you're certainly not one of those nuts
.
And just to get it out of the way, when I said
I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm a gun control guy, but this prevention of smelting weaponry into scrap material is simply nothing more to me than a way to "stick it" to those dirty red gun-hating Commies. At absolutely no point did it look like it had any purpose beyond getting hoorahs from the NRA, which is why the point of concern that is historical weaponry never came to mind.
The only reason why I said it like that was because I couldn't figure out a way to express this view without going too far into my beliefs on the matter. And I put a "maybe it's because I'm gun-control" warning in front to alert everyone to more-biased-than-average writing in the paragraph ahead. Again, apologies if I should've made this more clear. In reality there are of course legitimate non-political reasons for the law. It's just that my opinion on the motivation behind its inception was a bit more biased than usual.