On 12/19/2014 5:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 4:18 PM, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 12/19/2014 2:02 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 9:24 AM, LizR <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: They also failed to foresee that hand-held weapons would become so powerful. Are you sure that more powerful hand-held weapons would change their minds about the need to keep a balance of power between the government and the citizens? I suspect it would just reinforce the idea.They foresaw a country without a standing army with an armed citizenry that could be called upon to defend their states. So I think the straight forward interpretation of the 2nd amendment is that citizens have the right to the same arms that are commonly issued to individual soldiers - which would be assault rifles.The government argued as much in this Supreme Court case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._MillerI think the U.S. government could ban handguns - but not assault rifles. And this might go a long way toward reducing gun homicides because as it is now almost all homicides are with handguns.But if people are willing to commit the most severe crimes (murder), would a law against handguns serve any additional deterrent? The access to such devices will have less and less correlation to the legality of such devices as 3d printing technology takes off.
It's not a question of access, it's a question of portability and concealment. Cops could much more easily see who was carrying an M16 rather than a Glock, and even rifles could be banned in certain areas. So while everyone would have the right to own an M16 they could be arrested for carrying it around town and down to liquor store.
We've already seen plastic printed magazines and even plastic guns being made from 3d printers. And of course if rifles are legal, then sawing the barrel and stock off to make it concealable will always be an option.
No, because there would be a definition of "rifle" that would make sawing it off illegal, as there is for shotguns for that very reason.
For the overwhelming majority of people people who commit murders with guns, ownership of the gun is already forbidden for them (as they likely have existing felony convictions).
Sounds like another statistic dreamed up by the NRA. But you're right that simply outlawing possession of handguns wouldn't have much effect because they are easily concealed. There would have to be a drive to confiscate all of them and forbid their importation and sale and sale of ammunition - which is why it won't be done.
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