The utility of guns today is for hunting, recreation, and very rarely self defense. If I find out my kid's friend's dad doesn't know how to secure a gun. He will need it for self defense.

Wasn't the 2A was drafted after the election procedures were established?

The framers likely anticipated the continued development of armaments technology, and murder was already a crime in 1787.

No disagreement with the first.

With the second - you don't know, which is part of the reason why you prepare.

LOL if you actually think the framers had any clue there would be such a thing as an automatic weapon at any point in the future we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Yes, but at the time do you think they knew how the country would actually evolve? They probably hoped for the best, but planned for the worst.

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” - Thomas Jefferson

How does this ever end?

Data don't don't change minds. Study after study show that restrictive gun control laws reduce homicides, suicides, domestic abuse, you name it.

Reason doesn't change minds. No matter how many gun deaths we have, or gun massacres we endure, defenders of gun rights repeatedly trot out the same tired and poorly thought out arguments: I need it for protection, guns are a defense against tyranny, gun control is ineffective, or you can't prevent all gun deaths.

Tragedies don't change minds. We had sandy hook where little tiny kids died in a school. Democrats proposed the wimpiest milquetoast gun control measure ever and republicans still unanimously voted against it. A senator was shot and nearly killed, republicans responded by trying to make it easier to buy silencers.

Compromise doesn't work. In Washington in 2012 we voted on a measure to require every gun transaction have a background check (to make it harder for felons, domestic abusers, etc. to get guns). Gun rights advocates fought it tooth and nail.

How do we escape this horrifying, infuriating, cycle. Or do we.

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason

Because townspeople or citizen militias or whatever could be equipped to actually fight against the military when the constitution was written. Beyond technology the practice of warfare changed a lot in WWI and WWII as well. Euro and American battles in the revolutionary period were often armies assembled in fields. Even if citizens could resist the US military it would be like Syria with cities destroyed and most everyone in the affected areas ruined.

Fighting the police with weapons just militarizes them and if you're at all successful it brings on the actual military.

So, it's not that it's not important, it's that it's not a realistic option for resisting tyranny. And there's a cost of guns to be weighed against any benefits - and the benefit the founders saw isn't really a benefit anymore.

NRA Says Mass Shootings Just The Unfortunate Price Of Protecting People’s Freedom To Commit Mass Shootings

Hammer - the Jefferson clothing analogy is great.

Yes, our society has evolved in ways the framers of the constitution could not have dreamed. We need to rethink how effective our representative bodies are at actually representing us, given the increased size and diversity of our nation.

Some things never change, though. Guns and butter.

Goofball - you have to escape the cycle.

Find an alternative solution. Social organization, popular empowerment. These are principles that everybody around here claims to celebrate (when they aren't flinging insults and turning up their noses).

Don't change the subject.

The 2nd amendment is an anachronism. It needs to be brought up to date.

The 1800s government had artillery that the people did not, right? They had better resources, better equipment, etc.

Yes, a full-on civil war would look like Syria, or Gettysburg. It's nothing anybody should rush towards.

But if the government is going to go to that length, if the regime is such that they don't mind causing that kind of domestic destruction, would you prefer to be in the position of lacking the ability to stop them?

Should the Rojava be disarmed because guns are dangerous?

what is anachronistic about the concept of a "well regulated militia"?

Are you seriously asking what is anachronistic about a militia in 2017?

We have a standing army now.

... and a navy.

... and an air force.

What's the militia for again?

But...

balance

To defend us from all of the above incase the government wants to take our guns?

There's no 'if' about it. Our regime, and if it came to it, a large portion of the population would absolutely cause that kind of domestic destruction. It's not coming to that in the foreseeable future, but the USA government and its owners are not rolling over.

No, Rojava should not be disarmed. They are in a position, not of their own making, where distributed military power (along with distributed civilian power) can effectively provide a real democracy. We are in a very different situation which calls for very different strategies.

These guys are going up against the government?



You're right, this is close, but the baby pushes these guys over the top.

Our militias are mostly right to far right extremest who for the most part only pipe up when dems are in charge. Who are they balancing out? For sure not trumps gov. They would load us on his trains as fast as they break water bottles of illegals and force them back over the border today.