That first sentence was a personal attack. If you are a man of your word, you won't allow that to happen again.
FWIW, I have fired, built, and at one time or another owned virtually every variation of the AR 15 you can name. I was taught how to work on and build the M1a / M14 / Garand family of rifles by Hook Boutin. You can Google him. I have the first M1a he taught me how to build and high power aficionados will confirm that is a Hook Boutin build. In addition, I once spent three months building and shooting AR uppers with everything from 1 x 7 to 1 x 12 barrels (phosphate, chrome bore, stainless, and Nitride / Melonite and a couple cryogenically treated barrels -416, 4140, 4150, etc. ) just to do nothing more than draw my own conclusions about them. Shot the M 249, M60, and Browning 1919 A1 as well.
Having said that, you can build an AR now for under $500. It's hard to find an M16 for under $20,000. Most of you know there has to be something different between two products with that big a price difference even if you've never seen either. Now, to launch into my rant:
Our forefathers fought, bled and died to create the greatest nation in the annals of history. They established a nation, conceived in Liberty, and we are the only country on the planet that has a Bill of Rights limiting the government, insuring your unalienable Rights. Of this, Patrick Henry wrote:
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 1788
The reality is, with each passing generation we lose some of our Liberties AND the Right to keep and bear Arms gets nibbled at a little more in incremental amounts. When a major party can run a socialist for president and that socialist almost walk away with the nomination, it becomes time to reevaluate where we are as a nation. It's not like gun control is not becoming a reality - it IS happening.
So effective have the socialists become that, in my lifetime, EVERY NRA endorsed president turned out to be anti-gun (I've been voting since Reagan first ran for president.) Finding politicians that understand the Constitution is as rare as finding gold nuggets in a septic tank. So, it is places like this and around your kitchen table with friends and neighbors that we've been relegated to in order to advocate for Freedom and Liberty. I'm up to the fight.
They established a nation, conceived in Liberty, and we are the only country on the planet that has a Bill of Rights limiting the government, insuring your unalienable Rights.
Are you claiming here the US is the only country that has checks on government powers???? Don't look now but quite a few countries have those things called elections that function as a check. Quite a few countries have even more stringent separation of powers. And liberty as you call it seems just as broad,or limited if you want, as in most Democracies. So what exactly are you talking about?
The United States was founded as a Republic, not a Democracy. You would be hard pressed to show me a country out there whose founding documents include an acknowledgment of unalienable Rights.
Democracies are all about majority rule. Under our Constitution (as originally written and intended) the majority can pound sand. Our Bill of Rights limited government and guaranteed those unalienable Rights.
We are both a republic & a democracy.
That is like saying we are a virgin whore.
A primary difference between a Republic and a Democracy is that, in a Republic unalienable Rights are above the reach of government. See this for the differences between a Republic and a Democracy:
REPUBLIC VS. DEMOCRACY, U.S.ARMY ANALYSIS
We are both.
There are at least two separate and distinct governments operating in the United States at present:
The Constitution is still used to a minor degree; it is the de jure / lawful / legal / constitutional Republic HOWEVER
The illegal / de facto / unconstitutional government we have today is a Federal - Legislative Democracy owned and controlled by a few elite multinational corporations.
Therein lies the problem. You cannot be both. Either you have inherent, natural, God given, absolute, irrevocable, unalienable Rights OR you have the power of mob rule that decides what privileges they will dole out to you and on what basis. A couple of examples come to mind. In Georgia, the
first time the state supreme court interpreted the meaning of the Second Amendment they ruled:
"The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is, that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Charta!
Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846)
A few years later, Texas agreed and went further:
The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of
himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it
from the State government. It is one of the "high powers"
delegated directly to the citizen, and 'is excepted out of
the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to
infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and
independent of the lawmaking power. Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859)]
BTW, the
first time the SCOTUS ruled on the same issue, they UPHELD the precedent set by states like Georgia and Texas.
The second point applies to ALL of your unalienable Rights such as this court ruling:
Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;' and to 'secure,' not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. That property which a man has honestly acquired he retains full control of, subject to these limitations: First, that he shall not use it to his neighbor's injury, and that does not mean that he must use it for his neighbor's benefit; second, that if the devotes it to a public use, he gives to the public a right to control that use; and third, that whenever the public needs require, the public may take it upon payment of due compensation. BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)
You can not surrender, sell or transfer unalienable rights, they are a gift from the Creator to the individual and can not under any circumstances be surrendered or taken. All individuals have unalienable rights. Democracies do not recognize, enforce, acknowledge, or in any way, shape, fashion or form any unalienable Right. We cannot be both.