[RedSpawn]

 awm, on 2017-June-26, 12:31, said:

Seems to me it's the pro-gun lobby which is being unreasonable. Some examples:

1. Almost no one thinks mentally ill people ought to be able to buy weapons. In fact we have laws preventing them from doing so already! But these laws have a few loopholes (gun shows for example) and the pro-gun folks have refused to close them. And recently the Republican government has made it easier for mentally ill people to get guns.

2. There is new technology using finger prints to make sure only a guns owner can fire the weapon. We anti-gun folks would like such technology to be available in stores. Note that we are perfectly willing to compromise by not REQUIRING such tech on new weapons, we just want it to be available so responsible gun owners can choose to get it. Nope, pro-gun lobby fearing a "slippery slope" will not allow this tech in US.

3. Okay, we all have different data we like to cite about other countries. I personally think Australia is a good example because it used to have permissive gun laws and high rate of gun ownership and killings (like USA) and they changed the laws and the stats changed! But okay, the other side finds flaws there. So how about we start to simply COLLECT data on gun deaths in USA? Nope, pro-gun lobby has zeroed out all government funding for such research.

BTW, my new home in Switzerland has an interesting model and a high rate of gun ownership. But you have to be trained and you have to be licensed (like how we treat autos). So no untrained idiots, everyone knows how to secure their weapons without toddler getting them, how to clean their guns without shooting self in leg, how to shoot their guns with at least some degree of accuracy. Seems like a sensible "middle ground" policy and nothing like a gun ban. Total no-go with the NRA in the states, not even negotiable.

And what about the quote:

Quote

“The moral argument is ‘guns can’t be both good and bad.’ This is just a logical thing, and since you will need guns in the hands of police to take away guns from the hands of private citizens then you’re saying guns in the hands of the government are really good and guns in the hands of private citizens are really bad. And what you’ve then done is you’ve created opposite moral standards for two groups of people who are not differentiated by anything except a concept called ‘The State’.”

If guns are lethal weapons that require this extensive type of governmental regulation and public restraint, why assume that local, state, and federal police officers aka agents of The State are best suited to use these lethal instruments in their execution of their public safety duties against the general public? Again, it smacks of a moral double standard. If guns are dangerous instruments of evil beyond responsible use, no one should be holstering them to effect lethal damage upon citizens. I don't see how placing a gun in the hands of a human being with a badge and uniform is removing the attendant evil and risks involved in the use of a firearm.

I was under the assumption that the 2nd Amendment is one of our unalienable rights; therefore, we shouldn't be in the business of infringing on the 2nd Amendment simply because of unpleasant outcomes that make the national nightly news.

I think gun control brings up another large concern:

Quote

Suicides by gun accounted for about six of every 10 firearm deaths in 2010 and just over half of all suicides, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The State frowns upon its own citizens deciding when they can exit this thing called "Life". That is for the Creator and the State to decide. Is the state trying to clamp down on the "unreasonable" suicide rate in the country through gun control?

[mike777]

think gun control brings up another large concern:
Quote
Suicides by gun accounted for about six of every 10 firearm deaths in 2010 and just over half of all suicides, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The State frowns upon its own citizens deciding when they can exit this thing called "Life". That is for the Creator and the State to decide. Is the state trying to clamp down on the "unreasonable" suicide rate in the country through gun control?

----------------


Do you believe assisted suicide is a constitutional right?

[kenberg]

 awm, on 2017-June-26, 12:31, said:

Seems to me it's the pro-gun lobby which is being unreasonable. Some examples:

1. Almost no one thinks mentally ill people ought to be able to buy weapons. In fact we have laws preventing them from doing so already! But these laws have a few loopholes (gun shows for example) and the pro-gun folks have refused to close them. And recently the Republican government has made it easier for mentally ill people to get guns.

2. There is new technology using finger prints to make sure only a guns owner can fire the weapon. We anti-gun folks would like such technology to be available in stores. Note that we are perfectly willing to compromise by not REQUIRING such tech on new weapons, we just want it to be available so responsible gun owners can choose to get it. Nope, pro-gun lobby fearing a "slippery slope" will not allow this tech in US.

3. Okay, we all have different data we like to cite about other countries. I personally think Australia is a good example because it used to have permissive gun laws and high rate of gun ownership and killings (like USA) and they changed the laws and the stats changed! But okay, the other side finds flaws there. So how about we start to simply COLLECT data on gun deaths in USA? Nope, pro-gun lobby has zeroed out all government funding for such research.

BTW, my new home in Switzerland has an interesting model and a high rate of gun ownership. But you have to be trained and you have to be licensed (like how we treat autos). So no untrained idiots, everyone knows how to secure their weapons without toddler getting them, how to clean their guns without shooting self in leg, how to shoot their guns with at least some degree of accuracy. Seems like a sensible "middle ground" policy and nothing like a gun ban. Total no-go with the NRA in the states, not even negotiable.

Just a brief note to say that I not only agree, I of course agree. That's probably about all that I can say. I regard all abstract arguments on this as a waste of time. It's possible, just barely, that someone who knows me would think I am a reasonable enough person so that we could hear each other out, but mostly it's pointless. You can explain that you advocate training and licensing, you can explain that you advocate reasonable precautions to keep guns out of the hands of children and the mentally ill, it falls on deaf ears. No restrictions, none, never.

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying your new home.

[awm]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-June-26, 17:30, said:

And what about the quote:

If guns are lethal weapons that require this extensive type of governmental regulation and public restraint, why assume that local, state, and federal police officers aka agents of The State are best suited to use these lethal instruments in their execution of their public safety duties against the general public? Again, it smacks of a moral double standard. If guns are dangerous instruments of evil beyond responsible use, no one should be holstering them to effect lethal damage upon citizens. I don't see how placing a gun in the hands of a human begin with a badge and uniform is removing the attendant evil and risks involved in the use of a firearm.

There seems to be a strong need for some people to simplify things beyond what is possibly reasonable. The idea isn't that guns are "good" or guns are "bad." The primary purpose of a gun is to kill or injure other living things. Many guns seem specifically designed to kill/injure humans, perhaps even in large numbers (i.e. armor piercing bullets, automatic weapons, etc). Again this does not make guns "good" or "bad" per se, it's a simple fact. This being the case, guns are inherently dangerous. For this reason, they are best kept out of the hands of people who are irresponsible. Obviously responsibility is a judgment call, and we need to be careful not to decide it carelessly. But in our society (in other venues such as determining criminal charges or allowing people to drive vehicles or even deciding who can vote) we have widespread agreement that:

1. Children younger than a certain age are not deemed responsible.
2. People who have a record of certain types of crimes and/or mental illnesses are not deemed responsible.
3. Responsibility can require a moderate level of training and passing some sort of skills test.
4. Technologies which guard against "mistakes" or irresponsible people getting ahold of things they are not permitted to have are generally encouraged (and in some cases required).

The police are allowed to have guns not because they are "the government" but because they go through background checks and extensive training. In some cases I suspect these checks and training need to be made more rigorous (see some of the cases of police shooting unarmed black people) but the general idea is sound. Private citizens would be allowed to have guns under similar constraints (background checks, training). Such a system does not necessarily even violate the 2nd amendment (which does talk about a well-trained militia, not "every random yahoo should have a gun").

[mike777]

Adam you bring up so many issues, I can only touch on a few\\


For starters I disagree with your basic premise. I would argue the primary purpose in a civilian sense is guns are for protection. Given your logic you can substitute the word humans for guns throughout your post.


If you want to advocate for a total gun ban fair enough just do it an open and honest manner.

You need to understand...and I bet you do...that people simply do not trust your reasonable proposals as they do not trust in your goal

The same argument applies to abortion and other reasonable progressive proposals.

[RedSpawn]

 mike777, on 2017-June-26, 18:03, said:

think gun control brings up another large concern:
Quote
Suicides by gun accounted for about six of every 10 firearm deaths in 2010 and just over half of all suicides, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The State frowns upon its own citizens deciding when they can exit this thing called "Life". That is for the Creator and the State to decide. Is the state trying to clamp down on the "unreasonable" suicide rate in the country through gun control?

----------------


Do you believe assisted suicide is a constitutional right?

Honestly, I am not sure, but I don't believe screwing around with the Bill of Rights is the way to resolve gun assisted suicides. As a nation, our mental health programs are laughable and are in dire need of revamping. Our people are dying because they do not have the proper coping tools when they feel their life is hopeless and/or broken. Removing our gun rights is a means to an end, but it still doesn't properly equip the depressed and desperate with life coping techniques. The government hasn't gotten off of its collective ass to make mental health a national priority like War.

[Zelandakh]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-June-26, 17:30, said:

If guns are dangerous instruments of evil beyond responsible use, no one should be holstering them to effect lethal damage upon citizens.

 mike777, on 2017-June-26, 22:29, said:

For starters I disagree with your basic premise. I would argue the primary purpose in a civilian sense is guns are for protection. Given your logic you can substitute the word humans for guns throughout your post.

If you want to advocate for a total gun ban fair enough just do it an open and honest manner.

It is really quite sad that when a clear poster such as Adam writes something that cannot really be misunderstood - suggesting that gun ownership be subject to licensing and training - some posters decide that what he really meant to say is that all guns should be banned. I mean honestly, if it so difficult here, what chance is there for groups that are invested in the subject?

No Mike, you cannot substitute humans for guns in Adam's post. For one thing, human ownership is something Americans ought to know something about given your history and is quite different from gun ownership. For another, training a person to use a human is also rather different...

But it does give me the opening to discuss another, better analogy. One of the things that the vast majority of Americans want to own is cars. To drive a car it is necessary to receive a minimum level of training and obtain a license, precisely because they can impact negatively on others' lives. It is I think, difficult to suggest that a gun has less potential to impact on others, so treating gun ownership in at least as strict a way as that of cars would seem to me to be eminently sensible and even non-controversial for unbiased people.

This analogy also lends itself rather well to taking the debate further into an area that Adam carefully chose to avoid, namely the control on the types of weapons that can be carried. HGVs and the like require a special license. This can perhaps be seen as the equivalent of weapons with a greater potential impact, perhaps those with the potential to fire faster than a certain speed or carrying rounds above a certain size. Above that would be weapons that one might ban completely - AA guns, grenade launchers, automatic weapons, etc - the equivalent being vehicles that would not receive a road license - tanks, APCs, etc.

The parallels are there and when you get down to it really quite difficult to resolve in favour of the gun lobby. I am quite sure that if an alien arrived on Earth, they would be quite surprised that a Smart fortwo was treated as more dangerous than an AR-15. Not even to consider the possibility that the law could be amended in this area is seriously pig-headed.

Finally, the best part of this analogy is that there is no limit on car ownership that would be problematic with the Second Amendment if transferred to guns. And the numbers are also similar - between 250 and 300 million. So, would anyone like to argue that cars are so dangerous as to require training/licensing but guns are safe enough not to need any sort of control? If so, please go ahead (we can all use a laugh); if not then we can instead get on to the real discussion of which weapons should be licensed, which should require a special license and which banned completely.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-June-27, 06:20, said:

Finally, the best part of this analogy is that there is no limit on car ownership that would be problematic with the Second Amendment if transferred to guns. And the numbers are also similar - between 250 and 300 million. So, would anyone like to argue that cars are so dangerous as to require training/licensing but guns are safe enough not to need any sort of control? If so, please go ahead (we can all use a laugh); if not then we can instead get on to the real discussion of which weapons should be licensed, which should require a special license and which banned completely.

The pro-gun people just keep falling back on the same claim, that they need guns to protect themselves, so you can't apply the car analogy to that. When resisting training/licensing requirements, they'll just say that someone shouldn't require a license to save their life and that of their loved ones. Would you prohibit someone from trying to apply CPR if they aren't a licensed medical professional?

Although you probably could apply the car analogy. Don't people need to be able to drive a car to get a loved one to the hospital in an emergency? Should we get rid of driver's licenses for this reason?

[Zelandakh]

 barmar, on 2017-June-27, 08:22, said:

Although you probably could apply the car analogy. Don't people need to be able to drive a car to get a loved one to the hospital in an emergency? Should we get rid of driver's licenses for this reason?

Exactly. You are more likely to be able to save a life with a car than as an untrained gun owner; and much more likely to save a life (or at least not take one unnecessarily) as a trained gun owner than an untrained one. Going down this line of reasoning turns out to be more of an argument for training than against it.

[Winstonm]

 barmar, on 2017-June-27, 08:22, said:

The pro-gun people just keep falling back on the same claim, that they need guns to protect themselves, so you can't apply the car analogy to that. When resisting training/licensing requirements, they'll just say that someone shouldn't require a license to save their life and that of their loved ones. Would you prohibit someone from trying to apply CPR if they aren't a licensed medical professional?

Although you probably could apply the car analogy. Don't people need to be able to drive a car to get a loved one to the hospital in an emergency? Should we get rid of driver's licenses for this reason?

People who perform CPR have been trained and carry a card indicating that they are trained; if they are not, they could be doing more harm than good.

[RedSpawn]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-June-27, 06:20, said:

It is really quite sad that when a clear poster such as Adam writes something that cannot really be misunderstood - suggesting that gun ownership be subject to licensing and training - some posters decide that what he really meant to say is that all guns should be banned. I mean honestly, if it so difficult here, what chance is there for groups that are invested in the subject?

No Mike, you cannot substitute humans for guns in Adam's post. For one thing, human ownership is something Americans ought to know something about given your history and is quite different from gun ownership. For another, training a person to use a human is also rather different...

But it does give me the opening to discuss another, better analogy. One of the things that the vast majority of Americans want to own is cars. To drive a car it is necessary to receive a minimum level of training and obtain a license, precisely because they can impact negatively on others' lives. It is I think, difficult to suggest that a gun has less potential to impact on others, so treating gun ownership in at least as strict a way as that of cars would seem to me to be eminently sensible and even non-controversial for unbiased people.

This analogy also lends itself rather well to taking the debate further into an area that Adam carefully chose to avoid, namely the control on the types of weapons that can be carried. HGVs and the like require a special license. This can perhaps be seen as the equivalent of weapons with a greater potential impact, perhaps those with the potential to fire faster than a certain speed or carrying rounds above a certain size. Above that would be weapons that one might ban completely - AA guns, grenade launchers, automatic weapons, etc - the equivalent being vehicles that would not receive a road license - tanks, APCs, etc.

The parallels are there and when you get down to it really quite difficult to resolve in favour of the gun lobby. I am quite sure that if an alien arrived on Earth, they would be quite surprised that a Smart fortwo was treated as more dangerous than an AR-15. Not even to consider the possibility that the law could be amended in this area is seriously pig-headed.

Finally, the best part of this analogy is that there is no limit on car ownership that would be problematic with the Second Amendment if transferred to guns. And the numbers are also similar - between 250 and 300 million. So, would anyone like to argue that cars are so dangerous as to require training/licensing but guns are safe enough not to need any sort of control? If so, please go ahead (we can all use a laugh); if not then we can instead get on to the real discussion of which weapons should be licensed, which should require a special license and which banned completely.

Guns are already subject to a background check (except those that are purchased at certain conventions), so why do we feel we need additional controls?

The individual who shot Scalise had undergone and passed the background check for the gun. How is implementing additional controls to stop the madness? If Hodgkinson had registered the gun, how would that have changed his ability to execute the crime in question? Do you think the gun training requirement would have prevented him from carrying out this vigilantism?

See http://wtop.com/alex...-assault-rifle/ about his passing the background check.

The shooter had no felonies on his record. So should we raise the bar and say that no one with misdemeanors can hold a gun? I am not against the training on a firearm by the way. It's just the government needs to be very careful when it is trying to play around with the 2nd Amendment.

http://nymag.com/dai...-lawmakers.html

Quote

Hodgkinson arrest record, as relayed by the Belleville News-Democrat, tells a different story.

Hodgkinson has a varied arrest record in St. Clair County, for offenses such as failing to obtain electrical permits, damaging a motor vehicle, resisting a peace officer, eluding police, criminal damage to property, driving under the influence and assorted traffic offenses.

In March, a neighbor of Hodgkinson’s called the police on him after he shot a gun 15 times near his home. William Schaumleffel told the Daily Beast that Hodgkinson was firing across a field, into pine trees, and he now believes Hodgkinson was practicing for today’s attack.

In 2006 incident police were called after Hodgkinson punched a woman in the face and pointed a gun at her boyfriend. The Daily Beast reviewed the police report, which said he also beat his daughter.

Hodgkinson was also “observed throwing” an unnamed minor “around the bedroom,” the police report said. Police identified the girl as his daughter. After the girl broke free, Hodgkinson followed and “started hitting her arms, pulling her hair, and started grabbing her off the bed.”

When a woman tried escaping with Hodgkinson’s daughter in a vehicle, Hodgkinson reached inside and “turned off the ignition,” the report said. “James then pulled out a possible pocket knife and cut [her] seatbelt.”
The charges were dismissed.

Sounds to me like Hodgkinson needs the help of a mental health professional, but that's not a national priority. We'll let the underlying issue escalate and revisit our gun control laws vis–à–vis the 2nd Amendment.

[RedSpawn]

Duplicate--please delete

[Al_U_Card]

In colonial times, guns (trained and available militia) meant ability for the rich land-owners to protect their assets from government control or seizure. That principle remains intact and the US is the only 1st world nation with the ability to protect property rights by force, if needed. One of the big impetuses for the US legal system. Individual rights and freedoms maintained on an individual level, to be crushed or controlled by those with the means to, as Gould said: "To pay one half of humanity to kill the other half." Survival of the fattest cats....

[Zelandakh]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-June-27, 09:34, said:

The individual who shot Scalise had undergone and passed the background check for the gun. How is implementing additional controls to stop the madness? If Hodgkinson had registered the gun, how would that have changed his ability to execute the crime in question? Do you think the gun training requirement would have prevented him from carrying out this vigilantism?

This is a typical deflection and it is disappointing to see such an obvious fallacy used here amongst (supposedly) sensible adults. By the same token, the recent auto-attack terrorism incidents were not prevented by driving licenses, therefore these should also be scrapped. Stupid argument isn't it?

Noone is expecting all gun attacks to be prevented if society chooses to have mass gun ownership, which is what 2nd Amendment advocates want. Throwing the baby out with the bath water though is just stupid. There are hundreds of preventable deaths every year. Licensing and training would at least reduce this number. If you want larger reductions then America needs to go further. Adam knows this as well of course but that was not the suggestion. The point he was making is that this is a small change that is pretty much in everyone's best interest...but the gun lobby is not just against it but has shut down any attempts even to have the issue discussed. This is the sort of thing he is referring to by writing "It seems to me it's the pro-gun lobby which is being unreasonable." And he is absolutely right and it is genuinely difficult to imagine any educated, intelligent and well-balanced person disagreeing.

As I wrote before, the real debate should start after this. Believe me, I have no desire to knock down every loony argument just to reach that point. If all of our right winged contributors are people that feel that any sort of softening on gun laws is part of a "slippery slope" then we can stop this sub-thread now and just get back to Trump.

[RedSpawn]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-June-27, 16:20, said:

This is a typical deflection and it is disappointing to see such an obvious fallacy used here amongst (supposedly) sensible adults. By the same token, the recent auto-attack terrorism incidents were not prevented by driving licenses, therefore these should also be scrapped. Stupid argument isn't it?

Noone is expecting all gun attacks to be prevented if society chooses to have mass gun ownership, which is what 2nd Amendment advocates want. Throwing the baby out with the bath water though is just stupid. There are hundreds of preventable deaths every year. Licensing and training would at least reduce this number. If you want larger reductions then America needs to go further. Adam knows this as well of course but that was not the suggestion. The point he was making is that this is a small change that is pretty much in everyone's best interest...but the gun lobby is not just against it but has shut down any attempts even to have the issue discussed. This is the sort of thing he is referring to by writing "It seems to me it's the pro-gun lobby which is being unreasonable." And he is absolutely right and it is genuinely difficult to imagine any educated, intelligent and well-balanced person disagreeing.

As I wrote before, the real debate should start after this. Believe me, I have no desire to knock down every loony argument just to reach that point. If all of our right winged contributors are people that feel that any sort of softening on gun laws is part of a "slippery slope" then we can stop this sub-thread now and just get back to Trump.

This is the original posting from barmar that presented the notion of the gun debate:

 barmar, on 2017-June-16, 08:34, said:

Every time there's a noteworthy shooting it "reopens the debate". They talk about it for a few days, then something else catches their attention and it gets forgotten. I think the only time one of these shooting actually resulted in significant legislation was the Brady Bill, almost 25 years ago. But nothing much happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Gabrielle Giffords, Sandy Hook, Pulse Nightclub, etc.

But maybe the comparison with Brady is reason for optimism. He was on the staff of a Republican administration, and Scalese is a Republican Congressman, so maybe conservatives might take some action when the gun violence happens to them.

If the Scalise shooting "reopens the [gun] debate", we have to conduct a postmortem on how the shooting occurred in this scenario and see what gun law changes, if any, we should make to reduce the likelihood of it happening in the future. This type of ex post facto analysis is very necessary in my opinion. It is not deflection.

I think it would be intellectually naive to assert that the shooting reopens the gun debate and we can go to our talking points without reviewing our current gun laws and carefully investigating the circumstances/events under which the shooting occurred.

We have to answer the following questions with respect to more stringent gun laws and the Scalise shooting:

The individual who shot Scalise had undergone and passed the background check for the gun.

• How will implementing additional controls stop the madness?
  
• If Hodgkinson had registered the gun, how would that have changed his ability to execute the crime in question?
  
• Do you think the gun training requirement would have prevented him from carrying out this vigilantism?
  
• Should we prevent individuals convicted of misdemeanors from obtaining guns since Hodgkinson passed a gun background check and had no felony convictions?

See https://www.washingt...m=.4d5f6a45489d for timeline of Scalise shooting.

[billw55]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-June-27, 06:20, said:

Finally, the best part of this analogy is that there is no limit on car ownership that would be problematic with the Second Amendment if transferred to guns. And the numbers are also similar - between 250 and 300 million. So, would anyone like to argue that cars are so dangerous as to require training/licensing but guns are safe enough not to need any sort of control? If so, please go ahead (we can all use a laugh); if not then we can instead get on to the real discussion of which weapons should be licensed, which should require a special license and which banned completely.

True enough, but we already are at that point. In my state, a license is required to own a gun; and in every state, some weapons are illegal to own at all. What is left to discuss is where to draw the line.

Some hardcore gun advocates do seem opposed to any of this though.

[Zelandakh]

 billw55, on 2017-June-28, 11:53, said:

True enough, but we already are at that point. In my state, a license is required to own a gun; and in every state, some weapons are illegal to own at all. What is left to discuss is where to draw the line.

A license in which a gun owner must pass a test demonstrating a minimum level of knowedge? No exceptions for gun shows and the like? My understanding is somewhat different...

[barmar]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-June-27, 09:34, said:

Guns are already subject to a background check (except those that are purchased at certain conventions), so why do we feel we need additional controls?

The gun show/private sale loophole is huge. According to a survey reported in Politifact, about 15% of gun purchases (excluding transactions between family and friends) bypassed background checks, amounting to 5 million gun owners.

While extra protections (like fingerprint checks) would be great, the gun lobby won't even accept a simple thing like closing the gun show loophole. They oppose any measures meant to increase gun safety, on the grounds that they infringe their rights to bear arms.

[barmar]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-June-27, 15:37, said:

In colonial times, guns (trained and available militia) meant ability for the rich land-owners to protect their assets from government control or seizure. That principle remains intact and the US is the only 1st world nation with the ability to protect property rights by force, if needed.

This is a silly argument. The government has tanks and bombers. If they wanted to seize your property by force, no amount of guns will protecet you. Even if we legalized ownership of military weapons, you're just one guy, the government has an army.

The framers obviously put in that amendment because they were citizens who revolted against their previous government, and obviously couldn't have succeeded if individuals didn't have weapons. But the world has changed since then -- such an uprising is totally infeasible now, regardless of how liberally we interpret the 2nd Amendment.

Now we depend on the rule of law to protect citizens from government tyranny.

[Winstonm]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-June-27, 15:37, said:

In colonial times, guns (trained and available militia) meant ability for the rich land-owners to protect their assets from government control or seizure. That principle remains intact and the US is the only 1st world nation with the ability to protect property rights by force, if needed. One of the big impetuses for the US legal system. Individual rights and freedoms maintained on an individual level, to be crushed or controlled by those with the means to, as Gould said: "To pay one half of humanity to kill the other half." Survival of the fattest cats....

If you read Federalist 46, you will find that the problem at the time the constitution was being developed was an argument between allowing a federal standing army or using solely a private state militia, solved quite cleverly by Madison in showing that both were possible without risk because a militia comprised of 500,000 private citizens could not be defeated by a standing federal army of 25,000. The fear at the time was indeed a fear of the power of a federal government - but only by some, not everyone. In fact, the argument about division of power is simply U.S. history, with those on either side of the positions.

This was the basis for the second amendment - a compromise - and it had to do with armies and militias, not specifically individuals' rights to own guns. Whatever individual gun ownership rights were granted by the second amendment came as a result of the perceived need for an organized militia to counter the power of a federal standing army.

The problem is that no one in the 1700s could guess the dramatic increase in killing power of modern armies, so that today "a well-regulated militia" has no chance against the federal standing army anyway - and hence, the second amendment is actually obsolete.