June 14, 2006
The Second Amendment and I
I’m not a fan of guns. However, I recognize people’s rights to keep guns. As I’ve stated before, I’m for regulation of certain types of firearms, but am not in support of a complete ban on gun ownership.
But, many people are against regulations, pointing out the second amendment guarantees their right to bear arms and any regulation infringes on that. But, I still have a problem.
I’m going to assume (unless someone wants to challenge the assumption) that pro-gun people are not against all regulations. Certainly, a nuclear bomb is an ‘arm’, but I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that they should be allowed to own one. The greater danger the ‘arm’ represents to the larger community clearly outweighs any individual interest in owning one.
The nuclear bomb, clearly, is meant as an extreme, but lets us start to narrow. Should people own Hand Granades? Land Mines? Can a person mount a mini gun on their porch for home protection?
If there is no one really arguing for these arms to be in general use, then the problem people have with things like the assault weapon ban (Which the GOP let die) is not that it simply regulated arms, but where it drew the line. But, rather than being a second amendment ‘absolute right to own’ argument, it’s essentially an opinion argument.
They simply would not have drawn at the same point.
Comments:dolphin said (at June 15, 2006 07:06 AM):
That's what I've always said. Very, very few if any people truely want to leave guns completely unregulated, it's just a matter of where they draw the line.