The 2nd Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, does not grant any rights. It merely enumerates one of our unalienable human rights that predates governments and constitutions. Government do not have the right to infringe upon our unalienable human rights, although some governments might think they have the power to take those rights by force. The United States of America, allegedly, is not one of those governments...we like to think we are a free society that actually lives by the words plastered all over our founding documents. Obviously that really has never been the case in reality, but that's another subject.
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So, if you want to talk about gun control laws, my first question to you is and always will be...are we a free country...or not? Do we live by the principles of freedom that this country was founded upon....or are we hypocrites who say one thing and do another, just like our slave-owning forefathers were? I'm going to live my life by those principles of freedom. If you respect my right to do so, we got no problem. If, on the other hand, you want to infringe upon my unalienable rights due to your own irrational fears or control issues, I only have two words for you: Molon labe.
It really is just that simple.
Red:
Yes, the United States of America is a country based on the idea that the government serves the people and not the other way round. That is the extent to which the U.S. is a free country.
Blue:
Some citizens and residents do. Others do not. One critical element of those principles is that in the exercise of one's pursuit of "life, liberty and happiness," one refrain from infringing on the "life, liberty and happiness" of others.
You will recall that the Constitution of the U.S. opens as follows:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Everything having to do with the limits proposed these days with regard to one's right to bear arms is proposed as one or several means to "establishing Justice," "insuring domestic Tranquility," and "securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."
If and when someone can propose a viable and logical means by which I and my posterity can be most effectively ensured justice and tranquility without also imposing restrictions on my 2nd Amendment rights, I'm all for it. Until then, however, if it means I have to endure somewhat more difficulty in obtaining a firearm than I do now, well fine. That it is somewhat harder for me to get a gun via legal means isn't a problem so long as it's not impossible for me to get one, assuming I show that I'm mature in my deeds and thinking and respectful of others' "life, liberty and happiness" when I elect to use my firearm(s).
Green:
Some people are; others aren't.
Pink:
The Constitution does not speak at all of inalienable rights; it's the Declaration of Independence (DoI) that does that. The DoI, although it is the key document indicating the colonies' unity and sovereignty, it does not enumerate any specific guidelines or principles (laws) under which the nation and its people will live, but it does identify specific characteristics and deeds with which our founding fathers found it unacceptable to live. Identifying specific laws governing behavior and what are acceptable states of being is what the Constitution does. In the DoI, there are three enumerated so-called inalienable rights, and not one of them is the right to bear arms.
Moreover, the inalienability of the rights identified in the Bill of Rights (BoR) is hardly a foregone conclusion. Indeed, it's not even so that one or more of them cannot become alien to U.S. citizens; an amendment to the Constitution is all it takes to make that become a reality. It is not and will not be easy to amend the Constitution to eliminate one or more of the rights provided for in the BoR, but that it can be done, however remote the possibility of it happening, is clear proof that not one of those rights is inalienable.
In reading the DoI, particularly with regard to seeking input regarding the intent and reason for the 2nd Amendment, one cannot help but notice that every grievance the colonists had that pertains to some aspect of the 2nd Amendment had to do with the King of England's use of standing armies.
- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
Looking next at the events that followed the colonies' declaring their independence, one observes that it was by having citizens who could and did have arms to bear that they were able to oppose and overcome the "repeated injuries and usurpation" to/of colonists' "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." As one can tell from the first bullet point above, the colonists weren't keen on folks roaming the streets with weapons of war (guns and swords, presumably at that time), and neither should today we be, that is if the grievances the founders enumerated in the DoI is to inform what think should and should not constitute our way of life.
