Originally Posted by
Natural Lefty
Sure, first of all, I find it strange that you seem to be defending personal gun arsenals at the same time as you are criticizing the violence that gun culture produces, Lady Quagga.
What are the basic elements that people want in life? They want happiness, security, and freedom. The Declaration and Constitution talk about these things. However, I consider no document perfect, and these were written over 200 years ago, when life was much different and humanity's knowledge base much less.
The crucial questions are:
Does knowing that people around us may have their own personal gun arsenals make us happy? NO! Quite the opposite.
Does knowing that people around us may have their own personal gun arsenals make us more free? NO! Quite the opposite.
Does knowing that people around us may have their own personal gun arsenals make us more secure i.e. safe? NO! Quite the opposite.
It is long past time for reasonable gun regulation to reduce the influence of gun culture, which is hurting America and Americans.
This is not anti-hunting. The weapons used in hunting are not what we are talking about. In that sense, yes, I do consider hunting a legitimate use of rifles. "Protection" may also be a legitimate use of guns, but not when the apparent use of such weapons would only be instigating violence against people.
As far as muskets are concerned, I really don't know what you mean, but in the Constitution, the authors were referring to citizen soldiers with muskets, not career soldiers with drones and nuclear bombs. The argument about protecting the citizens from a tyrannical government, I am afraid (not that you made that argument but it is one that I see from libertarian and conservative types), has gone down the drain, because if our government really wanted to kill us, they could and there is nothing that citizens could do about it with measly guns. Thus, it is imperative that government represent us and our interests, that it care about us, and that we participate in it and make it be "our government." As part of being "our government," I think we need gun control reforms, along with many other reforms.
That it is legal to own a bunch of guns is one of the things that needs to be addressed. Legal or not, it seems to me that a person who is accumulating a large arsenal should be noted and checked upon, if not outright stopped from owning so many lethal weapons. Again, as I said, that should be a huge red flag.