You are extrapolating. How is it unconstitutional to keep track of who owns firearms? Maybe if owning firearms is your religion, and sometimes I wonder. It aids in confiscation if and when a ban is being enforced. It's stated purpose is to assist in criminal investigations.
I'll ask it a different way if you're going to play that card: are you in favor of any infringements on the 2nd amendment? Or do you think banning nukes, tanks, etc from personal use isn't a second amendment issue? Yes, sir.
Let me ask you a question. Are they having some sort of registration database of nuclear weapons owners in NY? As for the second, you don't watch TV, read the newspapers, or anything?
Keep dodging the issue. You can't be a hardliner with constitutionality and then refuse to discuss instances of where you'd prefer infringement to the alternative. "H" word indeed. I try not to. I prefer to base my opinions of people off of those I've met.
The "issue" that you accuse me of dodging is entirely meaningless and pointless in the context of the topic at hand: the NY law. However, since you insist... I don't see the point in banning the citizens from owning an atomic weapon. It took the wealth of the nations of Iran or N. Korea to make one (Iran supposedly hasn't yet). May as well ban phasers, photon torpedoes, and light sabers too, as they are equally imaginary and unrealistic a scenario. Explosives in general may be regulated, because they aren't particularly Arms. They are used to clear land, make tunnels through mountains, remove tree stumps, etc. They are volatile, too. That you may need explosives as part of a working atom bomb probably restricts ownership. As well, like with any right, the right can be abused. Yelling fire in a crowded theater or printing libelous or slanderous material about someone or plotting to overthrow the government are examples of abuse of Free Speech. The response isn't to register everyone's vocal cords, but to accuse the violator of a crime and attempt a conviction. In that light, the 2nd isn't a license to do bad things with guns. If you use a gun to terrorize people, it's almost certainly not some protected action. Owning a gun or any other Arm, carrying it most places, etc., likely is or should be protected. The problem with this law is it is akin to registering everyone's vocal cords because some ridiculously small number might abuse the right.
The topic shifted to the constitutionality of registering guns. You said it infringed on the 2nd amendment. So I'm trying to explore that. You could feasibly cobble together a dirty bomb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn What about chemical and biological weapons? Tanks? Missiles? Some Americans are exceedingly wealthy and can afford such things. Your vocal chords are "registered" because people have ears and can report your abuse of the first amendment. Owning a machine designed to kill people is different. If you abuse your second amendment rights, the person or people you kill can't report you. I'm no district attorney, but I would imagine being able to trace a gun to its registered owner could assist in an investigation.
You're really reaching. Your vocal cords aren't registered in any form. You don't require a license to post on a message board, for example, or to write a letter to the editor of the newspaper, or to write anything at all.
But I am prohibited from yelling fire in a crowded theater, or from producing certain images, or from using speech to plot to overthrow the government. Just as I am prohibited from owning certain types of arms. The whole analogy is flawed anyway. Guns != speech.
USING those arms. You're prohibited from shooting someone or waving the gun in someone's face to threaten them, and so on. You got it really wrong.
Guns != speech. There is no other reason to have a gun other than to use it for its intended purpose: to kill.
Rights == Rights. Right to free speech, right to own guns. Both in the Bill of Rights. It's not broken, you don't have to insist on fixing it. Guns' purpose isn't to kill people. That's proven by the fact that guns are rarely used to kill people. VERY rarely.
I'm not trying to fix anything, I'm just trying to figure out why the registration of guns is unconstitutional. How does the act of registering that you own a piece of machinery, much like you would an automobile, infringe on your rights to own it? Sure, perhaps there is a law that says you can't own a certain firearm, and perhaps that law is unconstitutional. But how is being required to register a gun you legally possess unconstitutional? I'm not getting it. Die Antwoord was right all along!
Infringe. If it were written into the Bill of Rights that your right to own a car must not be infringed, then auto registration would be unconstitutional.
Shall not be infringed. The founders anticipated government's attempts to deny this right. They went to the extra length of adding those words to the amendment. They also felt is was the 2nd most important Right. Stossel did a show recently where he tried to buy and register a gun in NYC with a carry permit. He has typical left-wing hate speech type threats posted on his WWW site, so it is reasonable that he'd want a means of self defense. It took months and he was denied in the end. Clearly the laws aren't there to benefit society but to block law abiding citizens from their 2nd amendment right. There are exceptions to the 2nd. When SCOTUS ruled for the 2nd in its most recent cases, it mentioned exceptions for traditional "dangerous and unusual" weapons. Here common law goes back to well before this nation was founded (the traditional part).
