My cats have got about 50% of the idea of hunting mice, they've got as far as finding and catching, however, they struggle with 'killing', instead they prefer 'bringing it into the house, playing with it whilst still alive and accidentally allowing it to escape'. Thus, I now have a mouse somewhere under the radiator in the hall :/
Anyway, on topic, it's hard to give an opinion, but it does seem like one of those tricky situations, it's strange how people will argue for hours over the interpretation of the First Amendment, and yet the Second is like some unshakable, undebatable constant?
not that theres a gun control bone in my body, i always make the point that while the second amendment gives us the right to bear arms, it doesn't at all specify the kind of arms you can bear. for all we know it was some law forbidding amputation as a form of capital punishment. but seriously their idea of "arms" were smooth bore muskets, blunderbusses, and inaccurate single shot pistols. it didn't say anything about repeating rifles, six shooters, Thompson sub machine guns, semi-auto 9mm with 20 round clips, AK forty ****ing sevens, Uzis, mag 10s, .50 caliber machine guns, gau-8s, nuclear artillery or lady gaga. the line has to be drawn somewhere.
the purpose of the second amendment, was to allow for legitimate militias to act as an interim military and police force until a point where the government could establish police forces and an actual military. and it was a good policy up till the point where the frontier was used up. that would have been a good time to repeal the amendment. it doesn't make a whole lot of since for people who live in the city to own firearms, unless its full of criminals who also have them. you also had (and still have) those who live in more rural locations, where its cheaper and often better to go hunting than it is to buy meat. i dint want to take guns away from people who use them to feed their families (i have at least 10 pounds of venison in the freezer and it makes damn good chili).
id simply pass a law to ban antipersonnel weapons, namely handguns. id still allow hunting rifles, shotguns, and the like, nothing that would conveniently fit in oversized pants worn at the knee. of course certain groups would probably take offense to such a law. banning guns out right would seriously piss off those rural people, who conveniently seem to gather, collect and sell any raw materials that the urbanites among you need to build their cities. the gravel pit my in-laws run makes the gravel for concrete used in this part of the state. guns certainly make their jobs easier, so they don't have to kill the porcupines that chew on the hydraulic lines on the machines with their bare hands. or (and this is my favorite option), people can stop *****ing about guns, and accept the small amount of death they cause.
Except that it doesn't say anything about only being relevant unless and until there is an organized army. It says that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. What is implicit in that statement is that they would be around to be wielded against the leadership(implicitly Congress and The President) if they begin to behave as England had.
i think thats no longer possible. the government would pewn our asses with the weapons they are allowed to wield while our single shot rifles and pistols would do little should the government go sour. especially if they decide to nuke us. though it makes little since to annihilate your own populace. humans are insane enough to come up with a reason for anything though. even with the period weapons the government still had access to cannon, ships, horses, etc that the citizenry could not afford. so even then the government would have had a tactical advantage in any uprising. though though the amendment may have been merely symbolic in nature to show the people had control.
while i kinda like the idea that the right to bear arms was to protect us from our own government, i view that more as a modern interpretation of the amendment rather than its original purpose. the very fact that they mention militia makes me think the purpose of the amendment was to provide an interim police force. perhaps these militias were meant to be the only police force in the us. none the less the amendment was sufficiently vague so as to confuse people for a few hundred years.
but for fun heres the list of reasons off of
wikipedia why people wanted guns:
* deterring undemocratic government;
* repelling invasion;
* suppressing insurrection;
* facilitating a natural right of self-defense;
* participating in law enforcement;
* enabling the people to organize a militia system,
* slave control in slave states.
you not that both ideas are on the list
so why did no one try and shot bush then
sometimes i ask the same question about the current administration.
