I am coming to this late and have not read the whole thread but I will respond to the OP with this:
NO constitutional right is without restriction. Not even free speech (e.g. libel/slander laws).
IF you read the second amendment literally it makes no mention of guns. It says “arms” which means any weapon. So yeah, it would mean you could have a nuclear weapon. A prospect I assume the OP is not ok with.
Therefore, some restrictions on the second amendment are in order.
Once you agree to that then there really is no limit to where you can draw the line. As it stands the government restricts your access to many and most arms pretty significantly. You have no “right” to “any weapon.” You have a right to whatever the government says you have a right to. Has always been so.
As such the government saying you only have access to (say) bolt action long guns would be in perfect keeping with the government restricting your firearm ownership.
Once you wrap your head around that the 2nd amendment is mostly meaningless and means whatever we, as a society, says it means.
Put another way, we could ban guns tomorrow and declare pointy sticks (aka pencils) as the only thing you have a right to when it comes to bearing arms.
Does a murder committed baseball bat mean we need to ban bats? You can’t show that having more guns makes you less safe, while many people think that more guns makes them more safe.
There are 100 Million gun owners, some are bound to be unreasonable.
No, so that you can feel safer.
I have no idea of what that last personal crack is supposed to mean. Drug money launderers and terrorist financing are some pretty violent nasty people.
Except that SCOTUS has already ruled on this. You can’t ban handguns or rifles or shotguns. You can ban machineguns, sawed off shotguns and etc. Heller made it pretty clear- we do have a right to own a gun for self defense. You cannot have a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense.
" *Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.
(3) The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition – in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute – would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.*
the UK is trying to do just that. Taking away a weapon doesn’t remove intent as they found out with guns. Now they’re trying to take away knives. All they’ve done is empower gangs and endanger individuals.
Under this analysis, could the government say that your right to free speech is satisfied by being permitted to whisper in your own home only? Please show how that conclusion is any different than your argument regarding the 2nd Amendment.
Hint: when your analysis leads to to believe that a right recognized by the Bill of Rights is “mostly meaningless” you have made a mistake somewhere.
There are examples in the press about baseball bats and machete being used for murder- does having less of them make us more safe? Should we ban those?
So you think.
No, in general i dont want 100 million Americans to be made felons.
Because it helps with statistics just like using suicides by gun as padding for these statistics. I think it is only fair, trying to be neutral, to quit using this type of diversion.
I continue to believe that the other side comes from a position of lack of experience and knowledge of guns that leads to an irrational fear of them. So, instead of confronting the fear, they want to wish guns away into the cornfield like that little boy in the Twilight Zone episode.
They are generally smart people and they know deep down that can’t happen (hey, let’s just ban drugs and problem solved, right!) but allowing law-abiding people to own guns does not solve the solution in their minds because they won’t buy any even if legal because of their fear. So their fear boils down to OMG! More guns!
In our minds we view guns as positives: hunting, target shooting, protection. We have generally been exposed to them as young teenagers. When I was 16, I always bought rifle ammunition before deer season at the local hardware store. Once, I stopped at Wal-Mart and the clerk would not sell them to me because I was underage. I was dumbfounded. I mean, here’s my hunting license; I need ammo to hunt, right? I think today I would have been arrested if I tried.
They have been exposed to them in movies and in news broadcasts. That is where the disconnect comes from and why we always talk past each other in these threads: We are not coming from the same basis of thought.
