its depressing that im this jaded, but this is the crux of my stubbornness on the subject, the founders were very big on the ability of the people to be able to protect themselves from the government
But do you think handguns give you protection over our government? IN a true overthrowing the government sort of way? It matched up in the 1700s with the weapons they had. But it's not individuals now having the rights to form private militias with military tanks, planes, etc. And that's about what'd be needed to actually protect yourself from the government.
as has been stated numerous times, handguns do the brunt of the killing in this country, assault weapons seem superfluous, and might be so, but their effect isnt nearly as devastating on the whole
Say you live in the ghetto like say...Detroit or Newark ..would you really trust the government or police to provide you protection from criminals? That's part of why we have the second amendment, its not to protect ourselves from the king of England
I get the point you're trying to make (mostly poverty and crime) But the easy availability of guns is right there with it
Lots of good stuff there. I don't mind background checks/etc either, I just don't know about their efficacy in instances like this (he reportedly stole them from his mom, who passed all of her background checks). Or the Clackamas guy, who took them from (iirc) a neighbor? Tax on bullets? Good idea. Don't see anything wrong with that. Personally, I think the higher-capacity is a bigger deal than the semi-automatic. I don't know what shotgun you have, but I can empty 5 rounds from a Remington 500 pretty darn quickly. It's not "as fast as a trigger finger" can go, but if I'm shooting against your rabid football team, I can put some people down as fast (if not faster, b/c of the spread) than with a Beretta. If you had to rack a slide on a handgun to chamber a new round, it wouldn't significantly impact your firing time. But I think "semi-automatic" is a scary word for people who may not be as familiar with weapons.
But that's kind of doomed to fail; the government has equipment the citizenry can't hope to afford. No well run militia has a tank and a jet and a nuke let alone dozens of each.
That's because our government isn't desperate or corrupt enough to warrant a domestic uprising. If they were, we'd see less US vs Taliban and more Iran vs Iranians or Syria vs Syrians. And in a domestic fight, the US outshines both in resources.
It's apples versus oranges. The US that's struggling versus the Taliban isn't the US that citizens need to uprise against. That US would also have no trouble with the Taliban (glass Middle East).
In a domestic fight, it's 51% vs 49%, and no reason to expect the military to deal with roadside bombs made by our own civilians any better.
