What actually are the constitutional limits to owning weapons?

[logical4u]

The courts interpretation of the Constitution is subject to change. There is no legal reason why a new court could not reach a different decsion than a previous court.

Yes, they -could- arbitrarily overturn the two rulings w/o any sound reason.
-When was the last time the SCotUS did this?
-How would you react if some future court arbitrarily overturned, say, the Obamacare decsion w/o any sound reasson?

I fully expect that the conservatives are going to continue to reverse Row vs. wade, for the foreseable future. I consider that this is a very possible, though deplorable thing. I see no reason why liberals should not attempt to do the same, with regard to, what I consider to be, legal precedents that do not reflect commion sense in todays society regarding guns.

Are you saying a supreme court decision should have the same equal legal weight as the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
??
???

 

[logical4u]

I disagree. The best weapon for a mass killing by one crazed individual would be a semi-automatic rifle with lots and lots of ammunition, which is exactly what we tend to see in these incidents.

Either way, it is clearly not illegality that keeps weapons out of the hands of criminals and crazies. Nobody is calling for the repeal of the 1934 Firearms Act, whatever the intellectual arguments against it. That's because machine guns and explosives are not what the good or bad guys (or crazies) demand for the job at hand.

You aren't going to like this...I have an absolutely killer argument, so to speak, against this point of view. It is true that now, here, in the USA, crazies use semiautomatics of various length, which they CAN get, but not grenades or other explosives, which they cannot get, not nearly as easily as they can get the assault rifles and Glocks with big magazines.

However, what do the terrorists use basically all over the world day in and day out? They sure don't use assault rifles...........

They use explosives. Every single day, in Iraqi markets, on the Turkish border with Syria in refugee camps, in Egyptian crowds, thrown at Afghans queuing for jobs, or Afghans sitting in a circle meeting, in Africa, in Tunisia last week, in Israeli restaurants, and on and on. Years and years of explosions to kill groups of people. Because that is by far the best way to kill masses of people if you are going for a high kill rate, and they always are. They mostly make their own explosives, but probably would LOVE to have a few cases of USA manufactured grenades: talk about quality control!

I don't know why you say grenades wouldn't be useful to throw into classrooms, work areas, theaters, etc. if someone was crazy -- isn't that what they are FOR? I read that soldiers threw grenades into Iraqi stone houses all the time to clear them out. You throw them at groups of people, and they all blow up, limbs a-flying.

All over the world anyone who wants to blow up a lot of people chooses bombs: cell phone or pressure switch controlled often, but grenades would work, that's why soldiers carry them. So suppose people could buy them at Walmart? They would, right? Everyone else in the world uses bombs, and if our crazies could get grenades, why would they fool with assault rifles? Much too slow. At Virginia Tech the mass murderer Cho used guns, but he went from classroom to classroom like Lanza did. Think of the improved efficiency and kill rate if he had had a manbag full of grenades from Walmart! Throw one in and keep going, throw another in another room, keep going.

The rest of the world has a HUGE problem with mass murderers, and they pretty much all use explosives. So grenades would quickly become the weapon of choice if crazies and terrorists here could get them freely under the Second Amendment.

So there is a problem about the Second Amendment already being infringed, since logically, grenades are clearly protected, but somehow --- we don't get to buy them at Walmart anyway.

Have you ever considered that the reason the overseas "crazies" use explosives, is just because the population is unarmed, and cannot stop them? Would you even consider what "overseas" would be like if people were armed and could protect themselves?
Women in the ME? (do you think they would let men rape them and beat them in public)
People in Africa where "rebels" go into villages and cut off hands and feet to keep the population from voting?
People in Africa where the "gov't" goes into a village, and packs the population on to trucks, takes them into the desert and "dumps" them (allowing a more willing tax paying population to take over their village)?
In China, when gov't forces women to have abortions, how many doctors would be doing this if they knew they could be shot before, during, or after the butchering?
Any where the gov't thugs abuse citizens, do you think they would continue to submit, if they owned guns, and could fight back?

Do you think this country would be the same if it were not for gun ownership (a Constitution limiting the abuse the gov't can put on the citizens)?

Why do the people that want to "change" this country want to take it to failed systems (dictatiorship/tyranny/socialist/communist), instead of preserving the system (the Constitution) that made it the greatest country in the history of the world?

 

[Circe]

There are over 6000 times each day that people protect themselves with guns in this country. If you take away the guns then you have just made 6000+ new victims of violence. That would increase the violent crime in this country to over 400%.
Now tell me again how disarming the lawful owners of firearms will reduce violent crime.

Your argument that gun control would take the guns away gun from people attempting to protect themselves and would have no effect on the criminal's access to guns doesn't make sense. The NRA says this so much, that people actually believe it.

People buy guns to protect themselves, but the fact is most fatal gun shots don't come from criminals but are self inflicted.

I don't think that is a problem: if people want to off themselves with guns, why shouldn't they? Let them get on with it.

The problem is when they run around shooting other people! Their whole family, the school, the shopping mall. It's a question of control: we the shoppers at that mall can't control that we may be killed by insane mass murderers.

I think people should be able to defend themselves with guns. I don't think they should be able to shoot all the first graders in a school with an assault rifle!! I don't admire gun collectors --- the idea that these are the "good guys" is completely off the wall. Why do people have a gazumpteen guns designed for killing lots of people? Not for any innocent reason; maybe not any sane reason. It's basically NOT a good sign about someone's mental stability.

However, having a normal gun or three on the farm or in a home for defense just makes good sense, IMO. There are a lot of bad criminals out there. A gun designed like a military assault rifle? Very, very dubious.

 

[Circe]

...and statements like this from the Right, along with "The solution to the gun problem is more guns", are the reason that I bail out of conversations like this thread. When people compare gun regulation to banning hands because they hurt people, and toys because they are dangerous, then I know that the thread has been taken over by the radical right, and that the train left with all their baggage long ago... However, I take comfort in knowing that the majority of Americans favor stricter gun control and magazine size limitations. While the paranoia on this thread is so pervasive that nothing short of a zombie uprising will surprise many of these posters, I am heading back into the real world, where first grade teachers are not going to be trained to use automatic weapons against bad guys in the cafeteria.

There is a great deal of craziness talked. I wonder if any sane limitations on assault rifles and such will be passed? Once the weather warms up I suppose the school shooters and crazy old men going after school buses and firefighters will start up again bigtime. What a problem.

 

[PaulS1950]

With over 3300 people using guns to prevenr violence to themselves and others each day it would seem that there is craziness out there. There would be a lot more successful crime without citizens with guns.

 

[Circe]

This is the law I'd like to see: Missouri Democrats propose forcing some gun owners to destroy, surrender weapons

Published February 17, 2013

FoxNews.com


Missouri Democrats are trying to rid the state of assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.

Democrats in the state House have proposed a bill that would force gun owners to either surrender or destroy weapons including semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and semi-automatic pistols with a fixed magazine that can shoot more than 10 rounds before being reloaded.

Ammunition-feeding devices that can hold more than 10 rounds also would be banned. Owners also could send their weapons to another state instead of surrendering or destroying them and would have 90 days after the bill’s passage to make a decision.

However, the measure, backed by St. Louis-area lawmakers, is not expected to pass in the Republican-controlled House.


Read more: Missouri Democrats propose forcing some gun owners to destroy, surrender weapons | Fox News
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Getting rid of the really bad guns designed to assault and kill many people at once. That's not for defense ----- that's a design for mass killing, and that's exactly how these guns are being used.

I'm in favor of guns for defense. I am NOT in favor of guns for assaulting and killing lots of people wherever a gunman can find a crowd.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Getting rid of the really bad guns designed to assault and kill many people at once. That's not for defense ----- that's a design for mass killing, and that's exactly how these guns are being used.
I'm in favor of guns for defense. I am NOT in favor of guns for assaulting and killing lots of people wherever a gunman can find a crowd.

I love how you prattle on, oblivious to the fact that everything you have posted has been utterly and soundly destroyed.