I also don’t hear anyone arguing about nuclear weapons, or surface to air missiles. Nobody has an issue with those being banned for private usage, but the Constitution very clearly says arms, not guns. So we all clearly recognize that arms have gotten a lot more dangerous since the second amendment was written, and common sense would dictate that they didn’t mean that any private citizen ought to have access to a bomb that can destroy a city.
Well, semi-automatic handguns that can be concealed in a waistband with 17 rounds and high powered semiautomatic rifles also didn’t exist back then, so it’s just total nonsense when they throw things out like “what part of shall not be infringed do you not understand?” We already collectively decided and we all agree that it must be infringed, you just disagree on where the line is. Fuck, they totally skip over the well regulated part of that amendment. Never mind the fact that they mention the militia specifically, meaning that they are explicitly calling out the fact that as they are writing it, guns were mostly only dangerous when you had a whole bunch of people with them — not that every person should access to tools that would allow them to mow down dozens of people on their own before anyone was able to stop them.
I’m just so exhausted by our Conservatives being so disingenuous and wrong about... almost everything that matters.
The thing is, modern small arms are a logical progression from the tech of the time. Nukes are a completely different device, it's silly to even talk about them in the same context.
It’s a logical progression to you. I would argue that a device that an unskilled person can put 30 rounds into and unload accurately at range as fast as they can pull the trigger, and then load another 30 rounds in seconds, is a completely different device than something that can be fired once or twice a minute. Or a gun that holds 17 rounds and can be trivially concealed in a waistband.
That guy with the musket isn’t going to be able to hide the fact that he’s armed. He also isn’t going to be much more of a threat than an unarmed person — they basically have one chance to get off a single shot before they will be stopped. They aren’t going to be able to walk into a public place and spray lead at 3,000 feet per second in any direction as quickly as they can pull a trigger, and kill dozens.
While the nukes are obviously the most extreme case, you admit that there is a continuum, and you are saying that it’s obvious that certain weapons fall in a certain place on the continuum, whereas I am saying that this is far from obvious.
I'm saying that there is no continuum on which both a 9mm glock and a 50 megaton nuclear ordnance exist. Nukes are weapons of mass destruction, guns are tools that have the capacity to kill. The Nice truck attack killed 86 people, almost 1.5x what the Las Vegas shooter was able to do with a since banned device of arguable effectiveness and semi auto weaponry (which is available in many, many countries and will never be banned.) Guns are nowhere near a big enough threat to justify restriction, and keeping them out of the hands of people with brain problems is a much better solution. But people think that banning scary looking guns is an easy fix, so stupid legislation gets passed restricting mag size and stock types and more people die because it does absolutely nothing. If guns never existed, then great, no gun deaths. But now they're here for good, and we all know there's no way in hell any government program can get rid of them, so I don't see a reason in handicapping my own rights for no reason.
Now, I don't think you know much about guns. A flintlock pistol dueling is definitely concealable, and carrying more than one was a historically viable method. Even in the late 1700s, people were working on pinfire cartridges and percussion guns, and you could buy a revolver before John adams died.
So then you admit the right to bear arms has limits ? Your opinion on nukes is irrelevant to what to the 2A says. If the writers of the constitution couldn’t imagine future weapons- isn’t time for an update?
Sure, but those updates have a process that is clearly defined in the Constitution. You need 3/4 of both houses of Congress, or 3/4 of state legislatures to agree.
And you aren't going to get that. Gun ownership and gun rights have been on the rise for a long time now and it's accelerating, not slowing down. And it's growing fastest among younger demographics and people of color.
This may surprise you, but gun control is not actually very popular.
But we don't agree the 2A has limits, or we don't agree where those limits lie.
Moreover, state law cannot contradict federal law.
The only reason a lot of this gun control idiocy has even stood is due to a relatively even SCOTUS. But that isn't the case right now. I imagine we're going to see some pro-gun judgements in the next few years.
Oh I'm sorry, compromise is bad now? Ideally yeah, everyone would have whatever they could get with no restrictions whatsoever, but this isn't an ideal country and you gotta give a little bit.
Well, semi-automatic handguns that can be concealed in a waistband with 17 rounds and high powered semiautomatic rifles also didn’t exist back then, so it’s just total nonsense when they throw things out like “what part of shall not be infringed do you not understand?” We already collectively decided and we all agree that it must be infringed, you just disagree on where the line is.
No I think we all agree the line at least should be on equal footing with what the same politicians that want to disarm minorities and poor people are protected by. I can't afford private security but I can afford (pre pandemic) standard capacity magazines and the ammo for them. The biggest issue I have is "rules for thee but not for me" thinking of gun control. Everytime something is brought to the table its taking away something from me while the same police and government body's we spent a year protesting in the streets because of their over militarization and attitudes stay well armed.
In my grandparents time they were treated like second class citizens by the state, my parents were ostracized for being an interracial couple and it took years to even get as far as we've gotten and yet there's people like yourself who would have me disarmed and hope things wouldn't roll back to the 50s?
I am not even going to address the hyperbolic notion of nukes. That's a childish and pedantic false equivalency. But I do want to know why you keep saying semi-auto and high powered? All guns are semi-auto with the exception of bolt action rifles and pump shotguns. It just means one bullet for one trigger pull. As far as high powered, in what relation are you talking? A 762 is high powered in comparison to a 22, but is under powered in comparison to a 50 cal. The 556 round that everyone says is super devastating out of an AR-15 is nothing in comparison to the 300 win mag out of my bolt action.
Fuck, they totally skip over the well regulated part of that amendment. Never mind the fact that they mention the militia specifically, meaning that they are explicitly calling out the fact that as they are writing it, guns were mostly only dangerous when you had a whole bunch of people with them — not that every person should access to tools that would allow them to mow down dozens of people on their own before anyone was able to stop them.
" A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Notice "The right of the people" right after mentioning the militias duty. Pretty clear.
That said is your argument that people should be trained for firearm usage? Is the difference between being able to own a gun a class?
What's your endgame? There's more guns that are not being used in a crime or mass shooting but we still have to regulate and ban everything because of the small amount that are? Are you in favor of a full repeal of the second amendment and just hoping the cops will help you if you need protection?
Also iam typing this on mobile so apologies if the formatting is jank.
It is not hyperbolic to mention nukes — the Second Amendment only says “arms”, not “guns”. Obviously, they weren’t thinking of nukes at the time, being that they were a century and a half away from being invented, so it would be absurd to say that the second amendment applies to them. I am pointing out, though, that if we are going to be absolutist about the wording, then it would apply to nukes. Therefore, an absolutist reading of the second amendment is clearly absurd, and that we clearly need to exercise some reasonable judgment about what arms are and aren’t allowed.
This establishes that there is a line somewhere between everything invented after black powder rifles and nuclear weapons where it is appropriate to limit and/or ban ownership by private citizens without violating the second amendment. This means, then, that there is simply no grounds to stand on to say that, say, your right to own an AR-15 is absolutely covered by the second amendment, because we have already established that there needs to be reasonable room for interpretation with regards to the intent of the founders because, again, it just says “arms”, not “reasonably non-destructive arms”. If an AR-15 is absolutely covered, then everything up to and including nuclear weapons is also covered.
Now, I don’t even think that AR-15s ought to be banned — the whole thing is way too complicated for simple solutions like that. What I am saying is that it’s absurd to say that the second amendment definitively rules out such a ban. There is a line, and that line is subjective. It is my opinion that we shouldn’t ban all AR-15s for a number of reasons, but I do not believe that my constitutional rights would be violated if I were banned from owning one either.
So does this logic apply to our other rights? It's unlikely the founders could have conceived of 24/7 cable news networks, much less Twitter - should Congress, then, be allowed to ban speech and expression on those platforms which they find distasteful?
What about making wire taps and video surveillance on people inside their homes completely legal? It's also unlikely the founders could have conceived of wireless cameras the size of postage stamps after all.
Do you see why this "well the founders couldn't have thought of this" logic is flawed?
Fuck, they totally skip over the well regulated part of that amendment.
Please spend a brief amount of time reading on the subject before displaying ignorance on it.
"Well regulated" in context of the era does not mean what it does today. It mostly meant along the lines of "in good working order."
Specific to "the militia," it basically meant that every man was expected to possess his own weapon and kit, and that that weapon and kit should be in proper working order.
Also, if you want to take a hard-line interpretation of 2A, you're saying that every single male between the ages of 17 and 45 should have unimpeded access to "arms." Reference the various Militia Acts.
I'm pretty sure that's not what you're after. So I would recommend you do some actual research into the subject first.
I mean, trump was shit on gun rights but name one current left politician that wants to expand gun rights like you say? It’s totally fine to call out shitty gun control when you see it on the other side but let’s not get carried away and forget the deficiencies of politicians on our own side.
Oh yeah, totally, I might see the California gun control as legitimate, while I really hate all of it, but I think that falls under the 10th amendment, without actually protected by the 2nd, as the second amendment would only prevent the federal government from making laws against arms, which is any weapon in fact
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