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The Second Amendment Is All for Gun Control
- Snip -
Indeed, Scalia’s opinion in Heller warned that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt” on a wide range of gun laws, including bars on felons and the mentally ill from possessing guns, restrictions on guns in “sensitive places such as schools and government buildings,” or laws “imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” These categories capture the vast majority of gun laws in America.
In short, there’s plenty of room under the Second Amendment for gun control.
In recognizing the legitimacy of many gun laws, the Supreme Court did no more than adhere to the text of the Second Amendment. In the part of the amendment that gun-rights absolutists usually ignore, the Founders extolled the importance of a “well regulated Militia.” (For years, the NRA’s headquarters displayed a sign promoting “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” conveniently omitting the amendment’s opening clause.) Gun advocates are right that this language was not designed to limit the right to people serving in military organizations like the National Guard; the framers repeatedly said the “militia” was composed of we the people, ordinary citizens with our own guns. Yet it’s also clear that the framers thought that the people who make up the militia should be “well regulated”—trained, disciplined, and properly instructed by the government to use arms effectively, safely, and properly.
In other words, the American right to bear arms has always co-existed with gun regulation. The Founding Fathers had gun laws so restrictive that today’s NRA leaders would never support them: broad bans on possession of firearms by people thought to be untrustworthy; militia laws that required people to appear at musters where the government would inspect their guns; safe-storage laws that made armed self-defense difficult; and even early forms of gun registration. The founders who wrote the Second Amendment did not think it was a libertarian license for anyone to have any gun anytime and anywhere they wanted.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/17/the-second-amendment-is-all-for-gun-control.html
Indeed, Scalia’s opinion in Heller warned that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt” on a wide range of gun laws, including bars on felons and the mentally ill from possessing guns, restrictions on guns in “sensitive places such as schools and government buildings,” or laws “imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” These categories capture the vast majority of gun laws in America.
In short, there’s plenty of room under the Second Amendment for gun control.
In recognizing the legitimacy of many gun laws, the Supreme Court did no more than adhere to the text of the Second Amendment. In the part of the amendment that gun-rights absolutists usually ignore, the Founders extolled the importance of a “well regulated Militia.” (For years, the NRA’s headquarters displayed a sign promoting “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” conveniently omitting the amendment’s opening clause.) Gun advocates are right that this language was not designed to limit the right to people serving in military organizations like the National Guard; the framers repeatedly said the “militia” was composed of we the people, ordinary citizens with our own guns. Yet it’s also clear that the framers thought that the people who make up the militia should be “well regulated”—trained, disciplined, and properly instructed by the government to use arms effectively, safely, and properly.
In other words, the American right to bear arms has always co-existed with gun regulation. The Founding Fathers had gun laws so restrictive that today’s NRA leaders would never support them: broad bans on possession of firearms by people thought to be untrustworthy; militia laws that required people to appear at musters where the government would inspect their guns; safe-storage laws that made armed self-defense difficult; and even early forms of gun registration. The founders who wrote the Second Amendment did not think it was a libertarian license for anyone to have any gun anytime and anywhere they wanted.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/17/the-second-amendment-is-all-for-gun-control.html
The Second Amendment absolutists have been brainwashed by the NRA/ILA propaganda machine for so long that they, like sheep, rush to buy more guns at the ring of the "fear" bell. The majority of the citizens in the United States don't own guns, and are not so paranoid that they fear their neighbors or their fellow citizens.
The math is very simple: more guns = more gun violence.
