General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why are the gun defenders here? [View all]recentevents
(93 posts)The founding fathers also did not intend for us to have a 'standing army'. That is why it has to be re-approved by congress every two years. Without a standing army, there was a need for citizen militias to deal with the original inhabitants and groups both inside and outside of our borders from taking over. And most of the country was wilderness without stores or civilization. Hence the need to allow citizens to 'bear arms'. The arms in use when the document was written were swords and muzzle loaders, not semi automatic weapons.
If a mass shooter had rushed in a tavern in the 1700's and started killing people, after the first shot, or two if they carried a pistol as well as a long rifle, the crowd would have taken care of him during the 45 seconds or so it took to reload his weapon.
I don't think they intended for the citizens to have weapons that could kill 50 people before reloading. There are those that believe differently.
I personally am disgusted by what is going on in this country. We have more violent deaths than anywhere other than a war zone. It isn't because we don't lock up the bad guys, we put more people in prison than any other country. It isn't because we aren't 'Christian'. We have more self identified 'Christians' than any other country. It isn't because we don't have a military to defend our country, we spend more than the next 10 countries combined on defense, more than 50% of our budget is spent on current military and related costs.
Is it because we just suck as a nation?