Also pretty clear that it was specifically for a “well-armed and regulated militia”
Don’t get me wrong, I own guns, I like guns, I believe that guns can be owned safely, and I also believe that there should be more controls on who owns guns and what kinds of guns they own under which circumstances.
I feel like hunting equipment and 22s and stuff like that, semi-automatic handguns, perfectly fine for home ownership, home defense, etc…
But sniper rifles and machine guns and rocket launchers and everything above that basic home gun ownership tier should be placed in a sort of library-type militia system where people can join that militia, be trained in its proper and effective use, and be like a volunteer reserve national guard-type thing.
Kind of like we have volunteer fire departments where tax payers and donations provide them with the tools, but they go through the training so that they can back up the actual paid fire department.
Of course, we should have a gun-owner license.
A licensing system where you have to attend a basic safety course, possibly register for some sort of gun-owner insurance to pay for possible injuries to other people through negligent gun ownership usage, things like that would massively increase the safety factor of guns and massively increase the number of people that are qualified to use a gun in case of emergency and have the training needed to do so effectively.
Further, it’s not beyond the pale to make it that our weapons should be registered so that if they’re used in committing a crime, the weapon itself can help identify the criminal that committed a crime with the weapon, even if they stole the weapon from you to commit the crime.
I’m all for gun ownership. I just want more responsibility, more accountability, and more maturity about it.
It’s not really cool that any 18-year-old can pop down to a local Walmart and get enough ammunition to blow away a supermarket full of children.
Also pretty clear that it was specifically for a “well-armed and regulated militia”
Except that’s not the case. Here is the full text:
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.
If you go through writings from that era you’ll notice that while the vocabulary changes (I’ll get to that), the grammar is virtually identical to modern English.
If you reread the amendment with that in mind, you’ll notice that the first clause doesn’t actually say anything actionable. It’s just an explanation. Isolating the second clause of “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” doesn’t change the meaning of what’s being said.
Now, why did the Framers decide to include an explanation into the 2nd Amendment, but not the others? That’s hard to say. But I can at least expand on the context of the first clause.
Remembered how I said that vocabulary has changed? That’s unfortunately what happened with the first clause a bit At the time, the term “regulated” actually referred to being trained and equipped.
The term “militia” has also been distorted over time in common vernacular. What most people commonly think of as a “militia” like the National Guard is more precisely called an “organized militia”. In contrast, an “unorganized militia” refers to all able-bodied men of military age, at the time considered to be ages 16-45. Basically anyone that could be drafted in war.
This is important when you consider US military doctrine up until WWII. In times of peace, the US Army kept a small corp of professional officers, with the intent to draft men into the Army as needed whenever war is declared. Then once war was over, all the drafted men were sent back and the Army was shrunk back down.
This doctrine present a major logistics problem: when war breaks out, you need a lot of fighting men in a short amount of time. To alleviate this problem, you want the draftees (aka the unorganized militia) to already have much of the skills and equipment needed to fight, with one of these critical skills being marksmanship. Hence why the Framers found it necessary to national defense for the populous to be able to have their own weapons.
To change gears, there’s another argument I want to make: gutting and/or removing one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights sets a dangerous precedent. While the 21st amendment exists to nullify the 18th, we’ve never done that to any of the original 10 amendments. If the 2nd is abolished, why why not abolish the 4th, or the 5th, or even the 1st? That’s a dangerous precedent.
And while there’s the stereotypical argument of “you can’t take on jets and tanks with AR15’s”, the US lost Vietnam and Afghanistan, and arguably Iraq too. And that’s with the coffers and supply lines protected by an entire ocean. While a civil war would be horrifying, having that proverbial nuclear button pressures the government into somewhat caring what the populous thinks.
Further, it’s not beyond the pale to make it that our weapons should be registered so that if they’re used in committing a crime
Unfortunately, with the particular “administration” in charge at the moment I wouldn’t feel comfortable with them having a list of who has weapons. That’d make it easier for them to go after potential armed resistance early, allowing them to go full authoritarian.
Honestly, it’s in our best bet to stop pushing for gun control. That’d get rid of one of the big reasons that more moderate conservatives don’t vote for Democrats. Especially since we could instead put that effort into education, healthcare, labor rights, etc. which would do a much better job of reducing violent crime while making everyone’s lives better. There’s only so much political capital that a candidate and party can have, and it’s best spent where it would do the most good.
I’m not in favor of abolishing any rights accorded to the people by the Constitution.
If anything, I feel like we should have more rights and that the government itself should have fewer rights.
That being said, I also believe that we should open the doors and allow more people to have guns, but we should also attach educational requirements, location requirements, insurance requirements, and third-party checks on who has what gun when because, as you know the unbelievable spate of school shootings has shown, irresponsible gun ownership is one of the primary causes of death in what should be the richest and safest country in the world.
Implementing these checks would not infringe upon the rights of gun owners, it would expand them, it would allow bump stocks, silencers, fully automatic machine guns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, grenades themselves, landmines, tanks, surface-to-air missiles…
I literally could not give the first fuck over who has what weaponry as long as there is a reasonable, sane, and balanced check on how that weaponry can be used, and who has oversight on it.
The bigger issue is that we have irresponsible gun ownership and because of one clause in the Bill of Rights and how it is interpreted, these continued escalations of murders and travesties are happening so often that a school shooting is barely even front page news at this point.
That is incredibly terrifying, and sad.
We should do something about it because we are a sane society, and one of the best things that we can do about it is to institute licensing, registration, insurance, education, and taking weaponry above the level of self-defense and placing them in places where people can responsibly monitor their access, where they can actually be used and enjoyed for what they are, but they are not casually lying around unguarded by negligent parents and made available to disgruntled teenagers.
limiting mag capacity or bump stocks isn’t an infringement on your right to own a gun. it just makes it so you have a gun that can’t shoot as fast or as much. or do you think automatic weapons should be purchasable? what about heavy weapons like autocannons? should i be able to throw a .50 BMG on the back of my pickup and drive around with it?
Going with the other stuff I was saying, I definitely think you should be able to purchase 50 cals and machine guns and everything else, but like, you shouldn’t be allowed to keep them at your house.
They should have to go to a public storage facility where they are kept under lock and key, and only let out to the registered owner or to the people that the registered owner permits, like a gun bank that also serves as a volunteer militia registration and training center.
I’m totally okay with people having their cake and eating it too, as long as that is done with the overall safety and happiness of society in mind.
Blowing shit up is a hell of a lot of fun, and if you have the money to do it, you should be allowed to do it. It’s a great stress reliever, it’s an excellent opportunity to hang out with your boys or your girls or your pals of indeterminate gender.
You are describing the national guard. It’s a public service you join up, get training, and have service obligations.
If you want to blow shit up become an explosives engineer or work in demolition. Just because you have a personal fetish for high calibre guns is a pretty bad reason to claim everyone should do it too.
Casting aspersions on the person you’re debating with is generally not a good way to communicate your point.
I don’t have any fetishes for high-caliber weaponry. I’ve never fired anything stronger than a shotgun, and that was just when I was learning how to use a shotgun.
I am well aware that the National Guard exists, and I know that there are reserves and army reserves that the average person can join, but I also know that it is a multi-year, high-level commitment that takes you away from your career, your friends, and your family, and it’s not really appropriate for everyone.
Saying these things to me doesn’t actually address any of the topics that I introduced in my earlier statement.
It’s perfectly fine to disagree with me or to say that you believe all guns should be melted down for scrap.
I’ll do my best to debate reasonably as long as we aren’t just insulting each other.
Not really. You can have a huge range of levels of control and regulation on guns. You can’t really have anything between life and not life.
2nd Amendment is pretty clear: shall not be infringed
Also pretty clear that it was specifically for a “well-armed and regulated militia”
Don’t get me wrong, I own guns, I like guns, I believe that guns can be owned safely, and I also believe that there should be more controls on who owns guns and what kinds of guns they own under which circumstances.
I feel like hunting equipment and 22s and stuff like that, semi-automatic handguns, perfectly fine for home ownership, home defense, etc…
But sniper rifles and machine guns and rocket launchers and everything above that basic home gun ownership tier should be placed in a sort of library-type militia system where people can join that militia, be trained in its proper and effective use, and be like a volunteer reserve national guard-type thing.
Kind of like we have volunteer fire departments where tax payers and donations provide them with the tools, but they go through the training so that they can back up the actual paid fire department.
Of course, we should have a gun-owner license.
A licensing system where you have to attend a basic safety course, possibly register for some sort of gun-owner insurance to pay for possible injuries to other people through negligent gun ownership usage, things like that would massively increase the safety factor of guns and massively increase the number of people that are qualified to use a gun in case of emergency and have the training needed to do so effectively.
Further, it’s not beyond the pale to make it that our weapons should be registered so that if they’re used in committing a crime, the weapon itself can help identify the criminal that committed a crime with the weapon, even if they stole the weapon from you to commit the crime.
I’m all for gun ownership. I just want more responsibility, more accountability, and more maturity about it.
It’s not really cool that any 18-year-old can pop down to a local Walmart and get enough ammunition to blow away a supermarket full of children.
Except that’s not the case. Here is the full text:
If you go through writings from that era you’ll notice that while the vocabulary changes (I’ll get to that), the grammar is virtually identical to modern English.
If you reread the amendment with that in mind, you’ll notice that the first clause doesn’t actually say anything actionable. It’s just an explanation. Isolating the second clause of “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” doesn’t change the meaning of what’s being said.
Now, why did the Framers decide to include an explanation into the 2nd Amendment, but not the others? That’s hard to say. But I can at least expand on the context of the first clause.
Remembered how I said that vocabulary has changed? That’s unfortunately what happened with the first clause a bit At the time, the term “regulated” actually referred to being trained and equipped.
The term “militia” has also been distorted over time in common vernacular. What most people commonly think of as a “militia” like the National Guard is more precisely called an “organized militia”. In contrast, an “unorganized militia” refers to all able-bodied men of military age, at the time considered to be ages 16-45. Basically anyone that could be drafted in war.
This is important when you consider US military doctrine up until WWII. In times of peace, the US Army kept a small corp of professional officers, with the intent to draft men into the Army as needed whenever war is declared. Then once war was over, all the drafted men were sent back and the Army was shrunk back down.
This doctrine present a major logistics problem: when war breaks out, you need a lot of fighting men in a short amount of time. To alleviate this problem, you want the draftees (aka the unorganized militia) to already have much of the skills and equipment needed to fight, with one of these critical skills being marksmanship. Hence why the Framers found it necessary to national defense for the populous to be able to have their own weapons.
To change gears, there’s another argument I want to make: gutting and/or removing one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights sets a dangerous precedent. While the 21st amendment exists to nullify the 18th, we’ve never done that to any of the original 10 amendments. If the 2nd is abolished, why why not abolish the 4th, or the 5th, or even the 1st? That’s a dangerous precedent.
And while there’s the stereotypical argument of “you can’t take on jets and tanks with AR15’s”, the US lost Vietnam and Afghanistan, and arguably Iraq too. And that’s with the coffers and supply lines protected by an entire ocean. While a civil war would be horrifying, having that proverbial nuclear button pressures the government into somewhat caring what the populous thinks.
Unfortunately, with the particular “administration” in charge at the moment I wouldn’t feel comfortable with them having a list of who has weapons. That’d make it easier for them to go after potential armed resistance early, allowing them to go full authoritarian.
Honestly, it’s in our best bet to stop pushing for gun control. That’d get rid of one of the big reasons that more moderate conservatives don’t vote for Democrats. Especially since we could instead put that effort into education, healthcare, labor rights, etc. which would do a much better job of reducing violent crime while making everyone’s lives better. There’s only so much political capital that a candidate and party can have, and it’s best spent where it would do the most good.
I’m not in favor of abolishing any rights accorded to the people by the Constitution.
If anything, I feel like we should have more rights and that the government itself should have fewer rights.
That being said, I also believe that we should open the doors and allow more people to have guns, but we should also attach educational requirements, location requirements, insurance requirements, and third-party checks on who has what gun when because, as you know the unbelievable spate of school shootings has shown, irresponsible gun ownership is one of the primary causes of death in what should be the richest and safest country in the world.
Implementing these checks would not infringe upon the rights of gun owners, it would expand them, it would allow bump stocks, silencers, fully automatic machine guns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, grenades themselves, landmines, tanks, surface-to-air missiles…
I literally could not give the first fuck over who has what weaponry as long as there is a reasonable, sane, and balanced check on how that weaponry can be used, and who has oversight on it.
The bigger issue is that we have irresponsible gun ownership and because of one clause in the Bill of Rights and how it is interpreted, these continued escalations of murders and travesties are happening so often that a school shooting is barely even front page news at this point.
That is incredibly terrifying, and sad.
We should do something about it because we are a sane society, and one of the best things that we can do about it is to institute licensing, registration, insurance, education, and taking weaponry above the level of self-defense and placing them in places where people can responsibly monitor their access, where they can actually be used and enjoyed for what they are, but they are not casually lying around unguarded by negligent parents and made available to disgruntled teenagers.
limiting mag capacity or bump stocks isn’t an infringement on your right to own a gun. it just makes it so you have a gun that can’t shoot as fast or as much. or do you think automatic weapons should be purchasable? what about heavy weapons like autocannons? should i be able to throw a .50 BMG on the back of my pickup and drive around with it?
Going with the other stuff I was saying, I definitely think you should be able to purchase 50 cals and machine guns and everything else, but like, you shouldn’t be allowed to keep them at your house.
They should have to go to a public storage facility where they are kept under lock and key, and only let out to the registered owner or to the people that the registered owner permits, like a gun bank that also serves as a volunteer militia registration and training center.
I’m totally okay with people having their cake and eating it too, as long as that is done with the overall safety and happiness of society in mind.
Blowing shit up is a hell of a lot of fun, and if you have the money to do it, you should be allowed to do it. It’s a great stress reliever, it’s an excellent opportunity to hang out with your boys or your girls or your pals of indeterminate gender.
You are describing the national guard. It’s a public service you join up, get training, and have service obligations.
If you want to blow shit up become an explosives engineer or work in demolition. Just because you have a personal fetish for high calibre guns is a pretty bad reason to claim everyone should do it too.
Casting aspersions on the person you’re debating with is generally not a good way to communicate your point.
I don’t have any fetishes for high-caliber weaponry. I’ve never fired anything stronger than a shotgun, and that was just when I was learning how to use a shotgun.
I am well aware that the National Guard exists, and I know that there are reserves and army reserves that the average person can join, but I also know that it is a multi-year, high-level commitment that takes you away from your career, your friends, and your family, and it’s not really appropriate for everyone.
Saying these things to me doesn’t actually address any of the topics that I introduced in my earlier statement.
It’s perfectly fine to disagree with me or to say that you believe all guns should be melted down for scrap.
I’ll do my best to debate reasonably as long as we aren’t just insulting each other.