Dumpster Baby you seem to be saying there should be a psych exam for everyone buying a gun. After all how else will we know it isn't a disgruntled employee buying the guns? And yes you deserved to get flamed on arf.com.
No, I'm saying the opposite - do away with about 95% of the existing gun laws. Only do background checks on purchasers of machine guns and destructive devices, reduce the tax stamp to no more than $50, and un-restrict short barreled rifles, shoulder stocks, etc, etc. Don't make it dead simple for crazies and cultural criminals to casually pick up a MAC-10 on their way to a "social appointment".
The persons you describe would not be long for life if others are similarly unrestricted in their choice of defensive tools. The "wild west" was never so wild as it is "remembered" to be.
Great, everyone has to go around strapped and ready for combat at the drop of a hat. Everyone has to be combat trained and have a killer instinct. Mad Max World.
Yup. It's about the middle, and the Constitution is exactly that. The middle. We have the unlimited right to arms, and the compromise is that we are limited in how we may use them. Thats the middle. We can have what we want but may only use them up to the limits in the law.
I wish the millions of habitual and opportunistic criminals we have followed that philosophy with their guns, knives, clubs, and drugs. The rest of us could be like the gun toting citizens of Switzerland or Israel with no problems, but they have problems surviving the day.
So just to be clear you believe that criminals won't get guns that are illegal? Doesn't that go against the idea of them being criminals? We spend billions of dollars a year on the war on drugs and we can't stop them from pouring into the country. They're sure not buying them at the local drug store. The guy who doesn't cae about breaking the law will get illegal guns, they'll modify existing guns even if its against the law. They're criminals, its what they do. You and I may follow the law, they will not
What I don't believe in is making it dead simple easy for everyone to pick up that dead serious bullet hose at Wal-Mart, with no questions asked, on their way to a confrontation with their classmates, coworkers, neighbors, rival gangstas, whatever. They can do just that now with any kind of legal or illegal weapon they can get their hands on. They will continue to do that with any kind of legal or illegal weapon they can get their hands on, no matter what anyone does. But, making any and all kinds of firearms and destructive devices readily available to everyone with no restrictions at all is a recipe for disaster. You don't give a crate of machine guns to a bunch of kids on the playground, and that's essentially what the 100% gun rights folk are advocating - any kind of weapon for anyone, no questions asked.
Children are basically savages until they have received enough training and correction to become civilized. Unfortunately, we have millions of citizens who aren't civilized enough to get through life without periodic visits to the slammer and emergency room to get the latest gangsta bullets removed. I can't see empowering them to be vastly more dangerous and destructive than they already are.
Everyone seems to think "X isn't happening on the streets now so X won't happen in the future, and even if it does I'm pretty damn good with my Glock". I invite them to go to Mogadishu and look all those khat stoner zombies with the AK's and RPD's in the eye and see if they can still say "no problemo".