I just love how many people are calling the right to own a gun a “constitutional right”.
Are you in a militia? Are you training to ensure that the government couldn’t take over and form a dictatorship? Do you think that a militia would make a difference in such a case? The context in which some of you use the second amendment makes it basically senseless.
But even then… Why should it matter? There’s a big difference between pointing to a constitutional right and saying “this is correct, here’s why” (you can definitely do this in the case of rights like, say, the first amendment) and pointing to a constitutional right and saying “this is correct because the constitution says so”. And I honestly believe that the second amendment is outdated and can be removed.
Why?
Because now, we don’t have militias. A militia would be senseless in almost every context nowadays–for conflicts with other countries, we have the US Military, and for civil wars, we also have the US Military. For law enforcement we have the police. Within the original context of the bill of rights (“the people should be able to threaten the government”), it made sense. Nowadays it’s completely ludicrous. It has been since the civil war.
First of all, I repeat: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” is an independent clause with no qualifiers, and “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” doesn’t have any verbs in it, let alone any verbs that might indicate it was intended to limit rather than explain the right elucidated in the independent clause.
There, hijack over, pick another one of the 19 hojillion threads on this subject and beat your head against the wall there.
I think so, yes, for any number of good and valid reasons that are best enumerated in one of the 19 hojillion threads we’ve already had on the subject.
I’m actually of the opinion that statute is a bit, well, silly. Still, it’s the factual answer to the question.
What that has to do with the price of tea in China; or for that matter, the prosecution of the obviously-guilty attempted murderer who’s the subject of the OP, I have little idea.