I never wanted to "ban guns".

[TygrBright]

I grew up in a family with sport hunters who had rifles and shotguns. Relatives shot skeet and entered marksmanship competitions.

I always assumed that the 2nd Amendment was there to ensure that the government would be able to call on citizens who could be quickly mobilized in the event of an invasion or a threat to the nation, because those citizens could participate in organized, trained units (i.e. 'militias'). Such units could be quickly transitioned to formal military service at need. This made sense for the 18th Century and in more recent times, we have had National Guard and Reserve units that served the same function.

I never had a problem with the 2nd Amendment, considered in those terms.

And I never had a problem with working firearms being available to ordinary people for sporting purposes, or functional antiques and/or non-working modern firearms being collected by antiquarians and/or hobbyists. What harm?

Especially since back when I was young there were a good many programs that focused on firearm safety for the owners of sporting weapons. Including one called "the National Rifle Association" that provided excellent safety education and training. My grandfather taught all of us a few basics about firearm safety, things like "always assume it's loaded," "always be aware where it's pointing and NEVER point it at a person," "if you find an unsecured (i.e., not in the cabinet or locked rack) gun, immediately inform an adult and show them where it is."

I never had the hand-eye coordination for any sport that required accuracy in aiming things, even softballs or tennis balls, so I never got into gun sports. But they never bothered me.

Where did this thing about "the 2nd Amendment is about arming the people so they can fight against the government if they need to" come from?

This makes NO sense. No intelligent jurist or legal thinker would include that in a document creating the structure, powers, and limitations of a democratic government!

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

Sensible firearm regulation is not contrary to the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution and it is not an infringement on the rights of any citizen to peacefully enjoy sporting weapons in safe contexts.

You get a buzz from shooting big ones? Okay, there are actually shooting centers where you can go and pay to shoot 50-caliber machine guns. Wouldn't be my idea of fun, but I wouldn't make it illegal. Those guns are locked away when not in use, and you have to sign waivers and shoot them under supervision, making them as safe as possible.

You find fondling the blue steel of a "piece" exciting? Uh, well... okay. Fine. There are shooting sport centers, maybe they can add 'gun fondling' rooms for the enjoyment of their patrons. The guns can be not loaded and/or nonfunctional, and you can fondle away all you want, and NO ONE WILL GET KILLED. This is weird but should not be illegal.

You want to shoot skeet or engage in marksmanship competition? Great! Join a shooting club, keep your weapons secured at the club, hang with your buddies and shoot to your heart's content.

You want to hunt for the pot? Okay, keep a legal hunting weapon at home (and 'legal hunting weapon' will not include guns that would rip your dinner into too many pieces to collect, right?), registered, and secured when not in use, and bring it in for inspection as needed.

You want to trophy-hunt? Ick. But it's still legal, I guess. Go to a "game ranch" or other facility and use the weapons there.

You engage in a hazardous line of work and/or have good reason to believe you need a weapon for personal protection? Fine. Make that case to law enforcement, get a permit and training, register your weapon, secure it when it's not under your direct control, and bring it in for inspection as needed.

None of this infringes on any reasonable interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

I don't want to "ban guns".

I want to keep people from being killed by criminals and irresponsible people with guns.

This should not be rocket science.

sadly,
Bright

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Excellent post.

Thank you.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

[TigressDem]

3. The CLAUSES that DEFINE "well regulated" are Article 1, Sec 8, Clause 15 and 16 of the Constitution

2nd Ammendment
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.


Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 and 16 OF THE CONSTITUTION defines what a well regulated Militia MEANS



(Clause 15 – The Militia)

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

(Clause 16 – The Militia)

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

From the U.S. Senate web site:

Under these provisions, the right of the states to maintain a militia, including what is now the National Guard, is always subordinate to the power of Congress. In 1795 Congress first gave the president authority to call out the militia to suppress insurrections. Presidents employed this power to enforce federal law during desegregation disputes during the 1950s, and later during the civil disturbances in various cities during the 1960s

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Overthrowing the government was to be done at the ballot box

Not by mob rule

[lastlib]

16. Agreed. Wanna fight tyranny? Defeat it at the ballot box.

We did it in 2020........

[Harvey Wineburger]

5. You may recall that the framers of the constitution

Had just recently waged and won a revolutionary war against the existing government.

So your question:

Where did this thing about "the 2nd Amendment is about arming the people so they can fight against the government if they need to" come from?

It likely resulted from their recent experience of throwing off the shackles of what they considered the oppressive, tyrannical, and unresponsive rule of the British.

Obviously, the Brits didn't see it that way, but oh well.

[wnylib]

15. But the new government was established as a republic,

and the former colonists/New American citizens were not anti government.

The constitution says the purpose of a militia is to quell insurrections, not to initiate them. And to fight against external threats. In those days that meant threats from other colonizing European nations in North America, and against Native Americans due to the poor relations between European Americans and the Native people.

The idea of militias as anti government armed groups developed much later among vigilante minded paranoid people.

[usonian]

6. Great post.

I have a quick firearms safety test.
What's wrong with this picture?


Most would flunk.

[Rebl2]

7. Pointing gun at his wife

Don’t know what that thing is in her hand, but I would be pointing it at her husband. Idiots from MO. Guy is or was running for office I think.

[Hekate]

27. The thing in her hand is a handgun, pointed at peaceful protestors. Creepy pair.

[Demobrat]

8. I have never had anything to do with guns.

But I’m pretty sure the machine gun should not be pointed at the lady. She doesn’t seem bothered though, so maybe I’m wrong.

[wnylib]

17. You are not wrong. Whether or not she

is bothered by it is immaterial. First rule of gun safety is to ALWAYS handle a gun on the assumption that it is loaded so you NEVER point it at a person (or at anything else that you would not shoot, like your foot).

[former9thward]

11. It is a two dimensional picture.

It is impossible to tell exactly where his rifle is pointing.

[CaptainTruth]

13. I see 3 things...

The man seems to be pointing his rifle at the woman.

The woman seems to be pointing a pistol at whoever took the picture.

The man seems to have the rifle's shoulder strap wrapped around his forearm, coming out between his upper arm & body, which would definitely interfere with his motion. To me that's unsafe.

Of course the whole picture is wrong IMHO, neither one should be standing outside with guns given the circumstances.

[lastlib]

20. The idjit holding the industrial-strength child-killing machine is running for the US Senate......

...and pointing it toward his idiot-in-crime wife.

That's what's wrong with the picture.

[Mopar151]

23. Drunk.

Also stupid, but that may be redundant.

[IronLionZion]

9. I would support a permit system

with some sort of safety training exam, mental health evaluation, references, etc. Sure we'll still have bad guys going through all that. But it will make it a bit harder for the folks who are planning to shoot a bunch of people the same day.

[wnylib]

19. Agree.

[PurgedVoter]

10. The 2nd amendment says nothing about buying, selling or making guns.

Remember, it isn't guns that kill people. It's people who obtained guns and bullets that kill people.
Control the sale of bullets and paraphernalia for making things like bullets.

[wnylib]

21. Guns don't kill peoplee is an NRA and Republican slogan.

It's also BS. When someone kills a person with a gun, the GUN is the instrument that kills.

[thatdemguy]

12. read the federalist paper 29, by Alexander Hamelton

its says many things that are used by pro gun people. I will quote small sections below, but here is a link to the whole thing.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0186

The same persons who tell us in one breath that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and unlimited, inform us in the next that it has not authority sufficient even to call out the POSSE COMITATUS.

The above is where using the military against its own people should not be allowed.

but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens.

The above is the one I see quoted to say the people should have the same arms as the army.


Quoting the OP

Where did this thing about "the 2nd Amendment is about arming the people so they can fight against the government if they need to" come from?

This makes NO sense. No intelligent jurist or legal thinker would include that in a document creating the structure, powers, and limitations of a democratic government!

OP read below.

If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon20 to undertake a distant and hopeless21 expedition for the purpose of rivetting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project; to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power and to22 make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people?

Here is where they say the people go to "the seat of the tyrants" and crush "their intrenchments of power"

I do believe there should be some restrictions on fire arms, age, felons, mental things etc

[wnylib]

22. Regarding going to the seat of government to crush it,

it says that only in response to an order by the government for an army to attack fellow citizens. If that should happen, then the army (or militia that gets called up) should turn on the government instead, rather than obey the order of a tyrannical government to shoot fellow citizens.

[thatdemguy]

24. Abused and incensed doe not mean attacked

Abused can be taken as a lot of things, and incensed just means mad, as in old english to cause passion or emotion

[kacekwl]

14. I'll never understand why people say gun safety is such a

complicated issue. What you laid out is simple, safe, reasonable and easy. Anything else is ridiculous. This is the case for most "complicated" issues.

[wnylib]

29. That referred to state militias,

which today are the National Guard.

Genealogy is one of my hobbies. One of my grandparents traces back to colonial MA and CT in the 1600s. The colonial villages had militias, under the rule of the colonial governors, that trained and regulated themselves. This was for protection against raids from New France (Canada) and from Native people who allied themselves with New France, or, who made their own raids on villages over disputes regarding land use and territorial control.

Some of my British ancestors were killed in the Natives vs. colonists war called King Phillip's War by the colonists, but more accurately was Metacom's War.

Other colonial ancestors of mine were killed in raids by the French and their Native allies, particularly the one known as the Deerfield Raid (or Deer Massacre) in colonial MA. Several of those ancestors were militia officers. I have read many accounts written about the raids by people who were affected. I am familiar with the customs regarding the organization of those militias, the selection of officers, the training and strategies used, and their regulation by colonial governors.

Just as in the European American settlement of the West, it was necessary in colonial times to have arms and "well regulated militias" for defense. After the Revolution, when those former individual colonies became individual states, united under a central, federal government, the militias remained as state run agencies for the purposes stated in the constitution - to suppress insurrections (like Shay's Rebellion in MA after the Revolution) and for defense against external raids, as in the past. They were "well regulated militias" as an instrument of the state government, not groups of anti government vigilantes.

As for those militias being able to take on a federal army, if necessary, Madison should have discussed that with George Washington. Washington complained that the militias were not as good as the regular army, were not disciplined enough, and were poor marksmen.

The role of those state militias has been filled by the National Guard. There is no need for renegade, vigilante militias with their own political agendas to force on the general population at the end of a gun. That was never the intent of militias in the first place.

As for giving militias the same arms as the National Army, should they have nuclear bombs, too?

[Lithos]

25. I am against banning guns

However, the 2nd Amendment mentions - militia. Back in the founding days - a militia was definitely a citizen led effort where very basic training was conducted. I'm ok with opening up that definition - but I would think that as a minimum people who can not pass basic gun safety and usage training or who would not be deemed morally or intellectually acceptable for use in a militia should be allowed to have a gun. More training being required to match the capabilities of the gun.

People point to Israel and Switzerland as having a fairly well-armed citizenry - but they somehow also omit that these countries expect a certain level of training as part of this (in this case military training).

L-

[Ziggysmom]

31. Israel and Switzerland have mandatory military service requirements. Israel includes women, too.

Switzerland has a very high gun ownership rate, but low gun death rates.

Despite armed military in the city streets, Israel’s gun laws show civilian violence at a lower level than the US. To own a gun in Israel you need a note from your doctor assuring you are in sound physical and mental health. You can’t have a criminal record and must take a written and practical gun safety test. You are permitted only one gun and 50 bullets at any given time.

[Lithos]

34. Understand for both

Yes, - they assume you have to have a certain fitness to be able to own a gun. Though I would support some appropriate exemptions to the 1 gun limit as I can see cases where people's occupations might need multiple weapon types.

L-

[Hekate]

26. I sadly agree

[LoisB]

28. So very well stated. Thank you.

[James48]

30. Maybe the best answer

Is to set up a National Weapons Qualification system.

The Constitution also provides for the CONGRESS to set the standards by which the local militia is trained. CONGRESS can pass a law regulating WHzobis in the militia; and and prescribe basic training qualifications for different kinds of weapons. (Start with a black powder muzzle loader circa 1791, and go from there. You need a year of experience firing a muzzle loader before graduating to a bolt action rifle or a pump shotgun. Then another year for those, before graduating to a semi-auto center fire rifle. And then you need extra experience and training to qualify to own an AR-15.

At each stage your application has to be reviewed by a panel of local experts, including a mental health professional.

If you pass all the criteria, you can purchase your own AR-15 at Age 25, with 7 years of progressive experience. Heck- with those kinds of stadards, we can legalized machine guns (for age 30 to 65) without much risk.

THAT is what would put a real dent on the deaths from idiots running to buy their AR-15 on their 18th birthday.

[AndyS]

33. TygrBright for Senate . . . nt