The problem here is that many of the same people for fighting tooth and nail over freedom of speech want to qoute and cite the constitution as the supreme law of the land. Then they proceed to promote restricting the right to bear arms, adding gun control, adding restrictions and federal checks on owners prior to purchases etc.
Well I got news for you, requiring permission or restricting for reasons whether you believe they are valid reasons or not IS infringing. So in essence the constitution has been ignored on the RKBA since 1968 as at that point it has permanently barred certain parts of society from ever excercising that right, which was vastly increased in 1986, and further in 1996 with Lautenburg. Of course you can cite the NFA act as well, but that did not specificly exclude certain people, merely banned certain types of firearms from civilian possession through a tax (notice they did not feel they really had the authority to ban things permitted by the constitution back then so they only taxed them with a high tax instead of outright banning them because it is all they believed the feds had the right to do as outlined in the constitution. Today they feel they have absolute authority and would not bother with the tax pretense and would ban them all together as they showed in the AWB that sunseted) which is also an infringement, but different in scope in that it at least attempts to work within federal authority.
So opponents realize it is hypocrisy to promote one yet conveniently ignore the other, but they want to be allowed to mouth off, but not have people with those awful things that can hurt people (because we all know if you ban weapons everyone will be safer) not understanding that it is those very awful things that protect thier ability to mouth off.
It is unrealistic because at some point we all know force needs to be available as a last resort to protect those very rights and ourselves from those that wish to infringe on our safety. These rights did not come to exist because people complained enough or thought hard enough. They came to pass because people fought and died shedding blood with those that stood against thier creation. Intelligent discussion and logic can create good ideas, but it is force that is required to implement them. Whether it is citizens creating a great nation, or officers and citizens defending the law with force when necessary.
However people far removed from the requirement of this force imagine things exist as they do because they just do and always have, and that new laws will manage to work out the remaining issues that exist. That the end result is zero problems and laws and restrictions should continualy be created to reach that goal. Completely ignoring the fact that people are flawed, and some will always attempt to infringe on others, and that the real decision you have is whether more freedom and liberty, or less freedom and liberty is how you want to spend your years on this earth.
The constitution does not say you have these rights unless this or unless that. It says they are a given and shall not be infringed upon. They have been infringed upon for years, so the constitution is in essence ignored. One of the biggest reasons it is ignored is because gun laws have set the precedent that ignoring it for good reasons is valid. If there is reasons that allow ignoring the second, then there is valid reasons to ignore the first, and every other one on there.
Imagine if you needed a license to excercise another right. To be checked out by the government for that right prior to excercising it. That the right could be permenantly be revoked if you stepped out of line. If being a prohibited person allows the denial of the basic right the founding fathers believed everyone had to have to deter tryanny, then all tyranny has to do to succeed is make those that may disagree prohibited individuals. Or those that show an inclination towards action prohibited individuals. This effectively outlaws disagreement and being willing to act on that disagreement in a way that forces people that do not wish to hear to listen. Government did not want to hear the blacks during the civil rights era, yet the forced them to listen.
In fact this was the basis for the very inactment of the gun control laws. Blacks were fighting for freedom, resisting against authorities during protests etc, commiting felonies by resisting law enforcement (which good or bad is always going to be the enforcers of legislation, so even under tyranny or a dictator, it will be officers tasked with upholding thier tyranny) and yet were still legaly allowed to possess arms. So the law was changed so that once they or anyone else steps out of line, that right no longer exists. This allows disarmament of any segment of society that attempts civil disobedience. Of course that basicly undoes the very reason the RKBA was added to the constitution, to give every citizen the ability to protect themselves, and thier families against all threats foriegn and domestic if needed. To resist tyranny if necessary.
So since the main reason the RKBA was included in the constitution has been effectively removed by legislation allowed to overide the "shall not be infringed" part of the second, we are not and have not been under the authority of the constitution since.
Between 1936 when the only thing people (even the legislators themselves) believed the federal government had the authority to do was tax something they wanted to remove (and they did want to remove the ability of citizens to have those items), and 1968 when they believed they had the authority to overide the constitution altogether and not even bother with the tax pretense, something went wrong. Sometime between those dates the constitution was disregarded as an old obsolete article to be ignored when it does not suite the easiest way to deal with a situation at hand.
