Quote:
Originally Posted by CPHoya
I'll start with the point that "crime dropping" does not mean gun violence is dropping, move on to the point that things being political non-starters NOW does not mean the battle is lost forever, then ask you to define what you mean by "circumvent the Constitution" without relying on Federalist Society vagueries like "all guns are protected by the Constitution no matter their design or purpose," then ask you to expand upon why Constitutional originalism is the correct way to interpret law, then point out that originalism actually does not embrace assault rifles anyway, then point out that I'm not aware of what practicalities make limiting ammunition sales a non-starter, then argue that defining reasonable firearms is not actually that hard, then I guess . . . hang up and listen?
Too many things going on at once, so I'll start off with the basic stuff. All sorts of violence is down from a peak in the late 80s and early 90s. That includes gun violence. It's hard to find good data sometimes because republicans made some pretty awful decisions to stop research in the 90s, but we're talking about rates that have fallen by about half. Suicide rates have been on an upswing, but are still down by just under 10%.
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As for the second amendment stuff, it clearly guarantees the right to keep some sort of gun. Like all other rights, there are obviously limitations that are very open to interpretation. However, there's no way you can read that and say, 'Well, I think we can ban all handguns' without losing any sort of claim to legal consistency when you're looking at something like, gay marriage.
Those things are basic things I think we should all be able to agree on.
(also ffs assault rifles != assault weapons, it's super unclear what you mean there)