The problem is not understanding the meaning of “well regulated”. Well regulated means it is in order, functioning properly, drilled, up to specification, has their shit together. One can see in a militia bill from the 1780s the laundry list of items each person was responsible for. They didn’t want you to show up with no shoes, a bent rifle, and unable to hit the broadside of a barn.
And back then the militia was considered to be any able bodied man over 16 that could be called up. And it doesn’t matter because it says “the right of the people” not “the right of the militia”.
And just for the sake of argument, let’s say they meant you had to be in a formal militia. So I start my own militia, get 1000 guys to start up, and then what? Make us go shooting once a month? Make us buy well regulated equipment? “Oh no, B’rer Bear! Not the briar patch!”
Note to mods - I am not trying to just keep repeating myself like a parrot, but I think this point on the meaning of “well regulated” is important enough to say it one more time.
So how many centuries do they need before you’ll consider the world as different from ancient Greece and the ante-bellum colonies? Because, you know, the other stuff you talked about changed some time ago - the guns people are talking about don’t let massed troops defeat elite weapons only accessible to rulers like drones, aircraft carriers, or nukes.
And societies are set up on changed basis, with people living mainly in cities, and minorities demanding rights, and slavery enduring behind closed doors, and people communicating information and misinformation in totally new ways. So can I trust the experience of hoplites and militiamen in a totally different world is less relevant to us than other modern countries, or should I consider things like women’s suffrage as only tentative experiments too?
You’re right guns were made to kill things. There are many things we use that were made to kill things that have peaceful applications. 99% of guns never harm anyone. I’m not sure that one can rationally brand something as “bad” when it mostly isn’t used for “bad” things.
Crime, and self defense are only part of the issue with gun control. The second amendment exists in large part so that I may (if need be) battle my own (extraordinarily well armed) government.
If we accept that interpretation of “well regulated” then wouldn’t it be consistent with the spirit of the Amendment for states to pass laws requiring gun owners to meet certain minimum criteria?
I’m going to go off on a tangent as a way of illustrating the poverty of your thinking.
Only two nukes have ever been used to (deliberately) kill and break things. Well over 99% of all nukes have never harmed anyone, yet I’m still pretty comfortable with the idea that nukes are ‘quite negative objects.’
Right. The problem is making individual gun ownership a right on the basis of an outdated law, one that says the very reason for individual ownership is for the purpose of forming militias if necessary, when we no longer have any need for such militias. Fer Crissakes, when is the last time able-bodied men were called up to bring out their guns and fight for or against something?
The problem is how little attention gets paid to the first, outdated part of that 2nd amendment sentence. It’s as outdated as slavery, and yet those of us who object to widespread, legal availability of weaponry and its consequences are still bound by it.
Calling bullshit here. Just because they have become socially marginalized (obviously anyone in a militia is an extremist, right?) doesn’t mean we don’t need them. Community based militia could certainly be useful in a wide variety of ways.
I don’t think that’s actually an option since, as you point out, we can’t read minds (and even if we could we probably shouldn’t).
However, given the fact that guns are pretty dangerous I don’t think imposing some limits on ownership on par with the limits placed on owning heavy industrial equipment – or even, say, automobiles. Licensing and registration seem pretty reasonable burdens on gun owners to me.
Of legal gun owners I would guess that most prone to committing crimes (probably of passion) are probably the least responsible and the least willing or able to deal with what I consider to be reasonable regulations regarding licensing and registration.
I’m open to ideas. In the mean time, I think relaxing some of the nonsense regulations already on the books and bringing in new regulations would put a greater burden on people legally purchasing guns that is proportional to the responsibility that should be involved in owning a gun.
I have seen it used before to mean the tactic of doing what @anon15383236 just did when she compared me to a pre-civl war slaveowner, that is to compare someone to a deliberately inflammatory figurehead.
Again the right doesn’t apply just to the militia, but the people. So for an actual militia, yes there should be criteria. Pass examples spelled out who qualified for the militia, and what gear they must possess to be part of it.
For the people though I am not sure how relevant laws for militias would be. But I suppose it depends on the law on whether it would be acceptable. I’m not one to want to remove every gun law on the books. I just disagree with many of the ones I have heard recently proposed.
