Right to Bear Arms (Split from Firearm Thread)

[CaptainHenreh]

CaptainHenreh: A very good analogy with cars, especially considering obviously everyone here is interested in them. However my car has a viable use (depending on who you ask about SRT4's, nyuk nyuk) which is to get to and from work/school/LIVING LIFE ONE 1/4 MILE AT A TIME.

I mentioned that in my own post. As gerald said, you may have a viable use for your car...but it doesn't need to go over 65, does it? Speeds in excess of 65 are a violation of the law. No honest man needs more than 100 horsepower, amirite? (And cars aren't even constitutionally protected!)

A gun has one viable use in current times, hunting. You do not need a handgun or an automatic weapon to hunt. My grandfather in rural Pennsylvania owns literally hundreds of guns, and not one of them is a handgun or assault weapon which would be affected by this ban. Because he hunts and practices target shooting with them.

I see you didn't read the post I linked you to. I'll forgive you. But you really should take 10 minutes to read what I wrote and the article I linked to, Massad Ayoob's "In Defense of the Automatic Firearm".

HAD you chosen to read the post I linked you to, you would have seen that you are, in fact, very very wrong about an automatic firearm being "unnessecary" for hunting. In a sense, you are correct. We don't need automatic firearms for hunting. In fact, if you want to get nitpicky, you don't need firearms at all. A bow and arrow served our ancestors, why not today? Why not a spear? Why not a club with a piece of flint in the end. Should we restrict ourselves to ancient technology because anything else is "unnessecary"?

But I digress. The reality is that a semi-automatic firearm has a very useful purpose in hunting: The quick follow up shot. Who wants an animal to suffer? A semi auto gives you the ability to take a second shot very quickly without changing your sight picture. Not every shot is perfect, and sometimes you may just wound an animal. In the time it takes you to work a bolt, the animal may have gotten away, or at the very least spends a few extra seconds in pain. A semi auto allows you to follow up quickly with a second shot. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the second amendment doesn't protect hunting.

So how can we accurately ascertain who should, and should not own a weapon capable of killing many people in a short amount of time?

We have laws in place for exactly this circumstance. If you've a history of mental illness, your NICS check will not permit you to receive a firearm from a federally licensed dealer. If you do NOT have a history of mental illness, then you are free as an American to purchase a firearm. You can't discriminate based on the possibility of mental illness because thats, er, discrimination.

However you are afraid of the government collapsing and you needing a gun to defend yourself against the oncoming apocalypse?

Our founding fathers certainly were. They new that nothing lasts forever, and they had just gotten finished fighting a long and bloody struggle against a tyrannical government. They new exactly what they were doing when the penned the second amendment. As I said in my previous post (the one you didn't read) the second amendment demands that we band together for our own defense, and the common defense of said constitution. The only person responsible for your defense, in the end, is YOU. Katrina is the perfect example of this. A disaster like that could happen anywhere, at any time, and I don't have faith in the basic "goodness" of humanity. When the shit hits the fan, I want the ability to defend me and my family, and I won't let someone who fears a simple tool take it away from me.

I really look forward to your response. I've never had a discussion with someone on Second Amendment rights where the other person had a genuine argument against firearm possession. "You don't need it" isn't a viable argument. You don't need your freedom of religion. You don't need your freedom from unwarrented search and seizure. You don't need your right to free speech, comrade. Those things don't keep you alive. So you don't, per se, need them. Would you trade those away as easily as your right to keep and bear arms?