Hello, I am new to this forum. I probably disagree with most of you here on several issues. I own no guns, and frankly they scare me. I believe in gun control. I believe in what President Obama is trying to do on this issue. I joined this forum hoping for some respectful debate and to learn the thoughts of those who don't agree with me on these subjects.
Let me start with a basic question: why do you guys keep bringing up the 2nd Amendment? I have studied most of the major gun proposals: the three being most talked about are a ban on certain semi-automatic rifles, a limitation on high capacity gun magazines, and a closure of the loophole for private sales (in which background checks are currently not necessary.) It seems to me that none of these ideas would violate the 2nd Amendment. So why keep bringing it up?
Why?
”Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the outcome of the vote.”
~Benjamin Franklin
”This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.”
~Abraham Lincoln
”That the people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free State…”
~George Mason
”Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.”
~John Adams
”The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
~Thomas Jefferson
”The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country…”
~James Madison
”The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
~Thomas Jefferson
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
--Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764)
"In a nation governed by the people themselves, the possession of arms to defend their nation against usurpers within and without was deemed absolutely necessary. This right was protected by the 2nd Amendment. --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.
And keep in mind what the OTHER countries said about arms.
Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Ida Amin, Mugbee, etc... and as a infamous one of their number said...
”Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the State.”
~Heinrich Himmler
And we know how THAT turned out. As did the USSR, CHINA, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Cuba, etc...
The 2nd Amendment is NOT about duck hunting.
The 2nd Amendment says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
It says the
PEOPLE's right to keep and bear arms, not the
Militia's, not the
STATE'S, not the
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S, but the
PEOPLE's right as in WE THE PEOPLE.
The first part of the Amendment was to give a REASON for the second part. That is why the PEOPLE should have ARMS.
The same arms the militias have (and thus the standing army of today.)
And that is why we bring up the 2nd Amendment so much. It is that important.