Quote:
Originally posted by stevepaa
Hum, I always thought the 2nd was there because of the fear of a federal goverment being tyrannical and that the right of individual states to raise a armed militia was so the people in the state could defend themselves against an organised federal force.
So, from that perspective, yes I would argue that states can regulate which arms individuals can own. We control the state by the election process, not by an armed rabble attacking your state national guard.
|
Before the state militias were federalized and became the National Guard, the states
did have this sort of check on the federal government.
Remember, no one really
needs the sort of personal freedoms we enjoy. Most countries lack them in fact. The 2nd Amendment goes to the core of what makes the US experiment in democracy "different". The people granted the government its powers not the other way around.
Quote:
So which guns do I think individuals can't have. Assault weapons, machine guns and handguns.
Those to keep. Hunting rifles, shotguns. For self defense, nothing quite like a good shogun
|
A handgun is a much better self defence weapon than the other firearms listed. It really isn't practical for a battered woman to defend herself with a long gun while commuting. Even in NH you'd get some strange looks carrying a shotgun in the supermarket.
I think a large part of one's views depend on one's culture.
I grew up with sharp knives in the kitchen and I never feared some sort of slasher incident.
I grew up with chainsaws in the back of everyone's pickup and I never was afraid of a chainsaw massacre.
I also grew up with firearms and I have a respect for them like I would any powerful tool or toy that could be misused.
If these things were absent from one's culture and one's only exposer was slasher, chainsaw movies and TV it would only be reasonable to have different feelings about them.
-Chris