Hello, everyone. I'm Mike Wisnieski from Lake St. Louis, MO, and this is my first post to your fine forum.
Let me start by saying that I am an avid shooter, and that I own and regularly use a number of rifles, handguns, and shotguns. I am a firm believer that it is right and proper for law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, as the second amendment provides. However, is it the really the prevailing opinion of the community here that this right is absolute and unlimited? If someone out there in the world started making tactical nuclear weapons and offered them for sale on the internet, does the second amendment guarantee my right to buy a few of them and keep them around the house?
If you say "yes", then I would respectfully disagree with you. I would say that such a scenario far outstrips the imagination of the founding fathers, and that a federal ban on private ownership of tactical nuclear weapons would be a reasonable and overall beneficial restriction to the second amendment right to keep and bear arms. If you agree, then you must also agree that this question of magazine capacity is not a binary, all-or-nothing matter, as many posters here maintain. Rather, I offer that there is a line somewhere between the extremes of total disarmament of the populace, and unrestricted private ownership of weapons of mass destruction, that we as a people should respectfully and civilly debate, and strive to agree on. Personally, I think that good cases can be made for including 30-round handgun magazines on either side of that line, and I will continue to eagerly follow this debate in search of enlightenment.