ctdonath
Member
Such issues need be addressed by starting with basic principles/axioms, then applying the question and seeing where you end up. All too often such questions are answered by gut feel, and end up conflicting badly with other conclusions.
Start with Cooper's Four Rules:
Understandably, if someone violates these rules, others have a natural right to act in a manner enforcing these rules - not as a matter of law, but as a matter of their own personal safety. If someone persists in breaking them, society - acting as a group of individuals interested in their own safety & that of others - has a collective right to disarm that person until they can be reasonably trusted with weapons again. Incompetence (i.e.: immaturity or insanity), wilfull violation (i.e.: reckless endangerment or worse), or criminal act (i.e.: outright violence or threats thereof) reasonably warrant disarming them. As such, children should be taught appropriately from an early age, and the dangerous should be restrained until they get the point.
So long as the person can reasonably follow the Four Rules, the right "shall not be infringed". Bare fear that someone might harm another is grossly insufficient.
Start with Cooper's Four Rules:
Without getting into a long discussion of that (plenty of threads have been had), I start with these as core principles. So long as they are followed, safety reigns.RULE 1: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
RULE 2: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO DESTROY
RULE 3: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER TIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET
RULE 4: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET
Understandably, if someone violates these rules, others have a natural right to act in a manner enforcing these rules - not as a matter of law, but as a matter of their own personal safety. If someone persists in breaking them, society - acting as a group of individuals interested in their own safety & that of others - has a collective right to disarm that person until they can be reasonably trusted with weapons again. Incompetence (i.e.: immaturity or insanity), wilfull violation (i.e.: reckless endangerment or worse), or criminal act (i.e.: outright violence or threats thereof) reasonably warrant disarming them. As such, children should be taught appropriately from an early age, and the dangerous should be restrained until they get the point.
So long as the person can reasonably follow the Four Rules, the right "shall not be infringed". Bare fear that someone might harm another is grossly insufficient.