[QUOTE=Pushkin]
I wondering that about the OP, if the Republican spends his/her time defending what is an irrevocable right and the Democrat supposedly spends his/her time trying to take that away, aren’t they equally wasting their time making a decision between them moot? 
[/QUOTE]
I have to say that I’ve sort of lost interest since this became a debate, and after some long days working. But to answer your question:
Whether the RTKBA is ‘irrevocable’ is open to debate. The way I read the Amendment is that the first part is a single justification for the second part, but not the only possible one. Basically: ‘Since a militia is necessary, and since a militia is made up of the People, and since the People are expected to bring their own military-suitable firearms with them, we recognise the People’s right to own arms.’ (Notice also that when ‘people’ is used elsewhere it refers to individuals, so I don’t think the intention was to redefine ‘people’ for this one Amendment.) The Framers, in their debates, also clearly believed that the People should be armed. In addition, it was assumed that people would hunt and they needed the tools to do that. And in the vein of ‘A man’s home is his castle’ a person has the right to defend himself. There are lots of reasons to own firearms. Unfortunately the Framers decided to cite one single reason in the Amendment and people have latched onto that.
Another argument against the Amendment is that the Framers could not have known that there would be cartridge arms capable of firing rapidly. The counterargument is that that doesn’t matter because it is assumed that the citizen soldiers would come equipped with arms suitable for military use, and that as advances were made in military arms citizen soldiers would adopt the same advances. (And just to head it off, I personally see a difference between ‘aimed weapons’ and ‘area weapons’. So grenades and nukes don’t count.)
The point is that a right may be eroded to the point where it is no longer a right. ‘Free speech zones’, anyone? Seventy-odd years ago fully automatic firearms, short-barrelled rifles and shotguns, and silencers were essentially banned. It’s true that one can still obtain them according to federal law. But they are in fact banned in several states. One has the ‘right’ to own an M-16, but in many places it’s impossible to exercise that right and everywhere else it is difficult and expensive. In 1968 further restrictions were enacted. For example, the Walther PPK semiautomatic pistol can only be bought if it came to the U.S. about 40 years ago. (The PPK/S is slightly larger.) And there’s no more direct mail-order.
I remember in the 1980s there was a study that said most armed criminals used handguns, and most of those were revolvers. But Miami Vice made it appear that the crims were all toting Uzis and Mac-10s. People began to notice that AR-15s (which had been sold for a long time as a varmint rifle) and AKMs could be bought at gun shops. And they’re scary looking. They’re no different functionally than any number of non-military-derived rifles, but they are cosmetically offensive. And so they were banned. The federal ban has been lifted, but my native California still bans many of them. There are outright or virtual bans in many places in the U.S.
So the ‘gun nuts’ do have something to worry about. The hypothetical Republican in the OP would help them protect their rights. The Democratic candidate would definitely not think it was a waste of time.
As for health care, that may or may not be a ‘right’. However many of us believe that since we support the government the government should help the People in return. It does this by building roads, providing police and firefighters, maintaining the military, looking out for our interests in foreign relations, and in many other ways. Why not help to ensure a healthy populace?
As has been previously pointed out, healthy citizens are more productive and add value to the economy. Catching health problems early is more cost effective than waiting for them to become critical. It just makes more economic sense to provide health care than it does not to.
I want to have the freedom to go down to the shooting range and launch projectiles at paper. (This supports businesses that sell ammunition, people who transport it, gas stations that fuel the trucks, etc.; and every one of those businesses pay taxes on the money they make from my hobby.) But I also want the freedom to not be locked into a given career or job and not have to worry if I’ll be injured in an accident or come down with some horrible disease. People say ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’, but they don’t like to say specifically what they mean when they use those words. They say ‘Freedom isn’t free’ when they want to support military adventures, but when it comes to cash they call it ‘stealing property’. For me, freedom isn’t ‘the ability to do whatever the hell I please’. Freedom is being able to do as I please within the confines of accepted behaviour – and freedom from being destroyed by people who are out to make a profit from other people’s misfortune.
The choice in the OP is what is more important to you. Is it better to be able to own a gun (in this specific case) and potentially lose everything to accident or illness, or is it better to give up what is essentially a hobby (and yes, risk that you may not be able to defend yourself in a dire situation) in exchange for some sort of assurance that medical situations can be addressed before they become dire and without the risk of losing one’s financial security?
That said, I would vote for the Democrat because of the old saying ‘At least I still have my health.’ If all guns were banned tomorrow I wouldn’t be happy about it. But I’d still be healthy to be unhappy about it. If I were to be financially ruined because of some medical issue I’d lose the guns anyway (because I’d have to sell them) and a fat lot of good they’ll do me when I’m dead.
I didn’t start this thread to debate UHC. I started it for opinions on which of two issues is more important to the readers. Given that this started with a limited choice, I don’t really want to debate the whole UHC issue here. That it became a debate is unfortunate. I’ll save the debating for other threads.
