Brandon,
"We don't let people drive cars without passing a test, can't sell insurance without passing a test, why not have to pass a test to carry a firearm?"
Now you're scaring me! Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. So is selling insurance.
Voting is a right. Poll taxes and tests were used up until the '60s to deny that right to blacks. The machinations of governments to infringe on the voting rights of so many citizens were incredible -- despite The Constitution forbidding those rights being infringed. The point is despite infringement of voting rights clearly being off limits to government, they were infringed by government.
The Constitution is primarily a document that restricts what governments can do. The rest of the Constitution outlines administrative structures and operation. The enumerated rights, such as the right to keep and bear arms, were added before ratification to make sure there was no way governments could weasel around them as they subsequently did with voting rights. In effect, they say "no way, no how, under no circumstances, contrived, real, or imagined, is any government, federal, state, or local, empowered to infringe with the right of any citizen to...."
Even so, just think of the multitude of laws that do exactly that! They infringe OUR rights to keep and bear arms. Criminals don't pay any attention to them -- they're heavily armed.
Consider this: a homicidal sociopath cannot be detained until he commits a crime. But neither you nor I can legally pack heat in the most dangerous areas of California, Massachusetts, New York, etc., without previously having gone through a multitude of gyrations to prove to some bureaucrats that we MIGHT responsibly be able to exercise our RIGHT to bear arms despite all the legal and other troubles we would have for NOT responsibly exercising our RIGHT whether we submit to those unconstitutional laws or not. In short, ANY unjustified discharge of a firearm subjects the shooter to intense legal and civil scrutiny that can result in loss of his freedom and fortune whether the most stringent gun control laws have been complied with or not!
Now when you advocate another unconstitutional requirement for a citizen to bear a firearm, that scares me. The irony of the tagline used by a poster is appropriate, "If a passenger on one of the WTC planes had a gun, somebody might have been hurt...." (Not necessarily an exact quote)
"We don't let people drive cars without passing a test, can't sell insurance without passing a test, why not have to pass a test to carry a firearm?"
Now you're scaring me! Driving a car is a privilege, not a right. So is selling insurance.
Voting is a right. Poll taxes and tests were used up until the '60s to deny that right to blacks. The machinations of governments to infringe on the voting rights of so many citizens were incredible -- despite The Constitution forbidding those rights being infringed. The point is despite infringement of voting rights clearly being off limits to government, they were infringed by government.
The Constitution is primarily a document that restricts what governments can do. The rest of the Constitution outlines administrative structures and operation. The enumerated rights, such as the right to keep and bear arms, were added before ratification to make sure there was no way governments could weasel around them as they subsequently did with voting rights. In effect, they say "no way, no how, under no circumstances, contrived, real, or imagined, is any government, federal, state, or local, empowered to infringe with the right of any citizen to...."
Even so, just think of the multitude of laws that do exactly that! They infringe OUR rights to keep and bear arms. Criminals don't pay any attention to them -- they're heavily armed.
Consider this: a homicidal sociopath cannot be detained until he commits a crime. But neither you nor I can legally pack heat in the most dangerous areas of California, Massachusetts, New York, etc., without previously having gone through a multitude of gyrations to prove to some bureaucrats that we MIGHT responsibly be able to exercise our RIGHT to bear arms despite all the legal and other troubles we would have for NOT responsibly exercising our RIGHT whether we submit to those unconstitutional laws or not. In short, ANY unjustified discharge of a firearm subjects the shooter to intense legal and civil scrutiny that can result in loss of his freedom and fortune whether the most stringent gun control laws have been complied with or not!
Now when you advocate another unconstitutional requirement for a citizen to bear a firearm, that scares me. The irony of the tagline used by a poster is appropriate, "If a passenger on one of the WTC planes had a gun, somebody might have been hurt...." (Not necessarily an exact quote)
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