CoffeeCat wrote:enterprikayak wrote:IMO: As for the argument: "what if A Man comes into my house with a gun? I must protect my family!" I say that is awful! A Man in your house with a gun! And I hope you get free and/or call 9-1-1 for some help. And I hope that The Man with the gun ISN'T the way you are destined to exit this world. But I personally feel that even if The Man in my house kills me and my husband and my daughter with his gun, my HAVING a gun of my own for "protection" wouldn't have necessarily prevented that at all. Not at all. It assumes I could get my hands on the gun, and operate it skilfully in the fear of the moment, and a lot of other things. Because of these reasons, I am positive that arming the nation is the wrong way to stop The Man from getting you with his gun. In fact, it is probably the reason The Man In Your House GOT a gun so easily. Those tolerant gun laws. And you're much more likely to die in your car. Gun or no.
Screw the man in the house argument - I'm talking about thwarting invasion and preventing tptb from setting up concentration camps and rounding up citizens like cattle. I mean - that is what the 2nd amendment was set up to protect against. I'm 100 percent for the 2nd amendment.
That's also why I'm against gun registration. I mean if part of the justification for the applicability of the 2nd amendment to ordinary citizens is the "invasion idea" or the "Big Brother" idea - and it is - then it completely nullifies such a purpose if there's a list somewhere with everybody's name and address on it who owns a gun. However, I do also see the need for "gun control", in quotations because a lot of people differ greatly as to what degree of control is warranted and what degree of control is unconstitutional. It's hard to argue categorically because I think each gun issue specifically has to be weighed from a 3-way perspective between how much it helps you protect yourself in a realistic situation, how much of a danger is poses to the general public if this is made into law, and/or how much a suggested restriction might infringe on the Constitution. Barrel shrouds for example... it's retarded to outlaw those. They do nothing but make a gun *look* like an assault rifle, even if it's not, so for me, they should be legal just because they don't introduce harm to the public, and you don't even get to the Constitutionality issue because they're not functional. Fully automatic weapons, on the other hand, present a very serious public hazard if it were made into law that it's completely legal to own and manufacture one. I'm not stating out of hand that it should be completely illegal to own one, what I'm saying is that an appreciable enough percentage of gun owners who went to purchase an automatic if it were made legal could possibly intend to use them for criminal purposes, and so it would be prudent -- and in my opinion, since they are a special class of weapon that did not exist when the law was written, Constitutionality should not be an issue -- to exercise strong gun control laws on the sale and acquisition of them (full automatics). I think that even the staunchest gun rights advocate has to admit that the only two realistic reasons to own an automatic are 1. because I can and 2. because it's fun. You don't need an AK to hunt, and you don't need one to protect your home (unless you're 2Pac or Malcolm X
), so the "need" aspect of gun rights in the sense that "I need this gun, and the law provides me with the ability to fulfil that need" isn't there. Automatics are a subset of guns, and outlawing them would be a restriction on the Amendment, but not a complete dissolution of it. Actually - the only other reason I could imagine a gun rights person advocating the legality of automatic weapons for all is if they are absolutely convinced that the threat from a fascist police state government is a complete reality rather than a distant concern, or that foreign invasion is - because in those two cases you would be at a serious disadvantage taking on armed, trained, equipped troops with battlefield assault rifles. If one of those two things were going on; 1. the first wouldn't allow us to legalize the guns because the government would be oppressing you, but I would morally agree with USING them despite the law; and 2. In the case of the second, Congress may or may not be able to legalize them depending on the severity of the situation, in which I think number 1 once again applies. But those are not circumstances we live in... they are threats... personally I think the former more than the latter in the days post-Red Dawn ( 
), but they're not a reality.Unlike a lot of gun rights supporters, I don't think most forms of gun control violate the Constitution. For example, I have a hard time sympathizing with Right Wing gun owners when they whine about how long it takes and how much red tape there is to get a gun because it took me like 2 days to get a permit from the Sheriff's Department, when generally people are under the impression it takes a minimum of 5. It was easy as friggin pie. Now, in other states like New York, I know it's a total bitch. However, to get a CCW you have to have taken and gotten notarized a certificate of completion of an 8-hour gun safety course, including range time. I see absolutely nothing wrong with requiring that of every single gun owner in the country. It would only be prudent to make sure a person knows what they're doing before they own a gun, even if it's their right. Obviously, it would only make sense to impose this on the first-time gun ownership.
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