PratchettFan
Gold Member
- Jun 20, 2012
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So what? The purpose of a car is to transport you from point a to point b. But that does not prevent you from turning it into a murder weapon. The intent of the 2nd is a well regulated militia, but it specifically states the people's right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. If they were writing the Constitution today, I doubt the FFs would have included the second amendment. But we aren't and they did. The only way to change that is another amendment.
Certainly there is a compromise between unsafe and free and unsafe and not free. However, I think the point is that what you are looking for is "safe" and that option is not on the table. You aren't safe and you will never be safe. If I wish you dead and am willing to die to make you dead, then you are dead. Whether I use a gun, a knife or a hammer changes nothing. Without another amendment, the best you can hope for is a limitation on types of guns. But even if this guy had been limited to revolvers, he could still have done a lot of damage.
No, the clear purpose of the 2nd is specified as "necessary to the security of a free state" and presupposes such as being "well-regulated". The 2nd was meant to secure the right of the people to bear arms for this necessary purpose... That is not to say random violence doesn't happen etc but that there is no necessary purpose to securing a free state in having average citizens wielding assault weapons. Au contraire such may prove detrimental to a free state...
Wrong. The 2nd Amendment does not presuppose the free state to be 'well-regulated.'
Technically true. It was for a well-regulated militia, not a well-regulated state. A well-regulated state is just common sense I doubt the Founding Fathers thought necessary to insert. The entire purpose of the Constitution is a well-regulated state. Which, of course, does not detract from the point Valerie was making.