ronc0011 writes:
You know, the whole machine gun thing gives me trouble. There’s no doubt that the 2nd Amendment is for the purpose of insuring that the people always retain the “actual” ability to retake their country in the event of an oppressive government be it foreign or domestic. With that in mind, for the 2nd Amendment to be of any real value it should apply to machine guns as well and even heavy machine guns, crew served weapons like the M60 or the M2.
All that being said I really do see a genuine problem with these kinds of weapons being freely available to the general public.
I absolutely believe that if the 2nd Amendment is to actually mean anything, if it is to provide the security it was intended to, then the accessibility of these kinds of weapons needs to be real and available to pretty much anyone. On the other hand there are a lot of people out there who have no business having any kind of gun, especially a machine gun.
Perhaps some kind of vetting system that requires passing a bit more scrutiny. I don’t know but it does seem like a bit of a dilemma.
And BTW, watching the direction of our country and world politics and affairs I believe the 2nd Amendment is more important today than it has ever been since the revolution.
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Who might it be that would be responsible for the "vetting" you mention? Perhaps the same people who define the interestingly UNDEFINED "reasonable restrictions" elsewhere mentioned?
Would you take the moment or two involved in reading posts # 42 which I wrote as well as #47 written by another, think about them and then get back to us?
In closing, you seem concerned about automatic weapons in the hands of the law abiding citizenry. I wonder as to why, for hasn't the armed law abiding private citizen long since proved themselves to be a hell of a lot more responsible than some LE Professionals, as they are sometimes described, not to mention more responsible than some in government. Seems to me that they have, meaning that the question has long since been answered. What strikes me as really funny is history. Prior to the enactment of the National Firearms Act of 1934, if you, Mr. Private Citizen desired a machine gun, you went down to the store that sold such firearms, haggeled with the store keeper if you could over the price, paid your money and took the thing home, the thing being a Colt Monitor(commercial version of the Browning Automatic Rifle) a Thompson Sub Machinegun or any other automatic weapons that might be available. While there was some limited use of automatic weapons by the criminal element, it didn't amount to all that much, with law abiding machinegun owners somehow refraining from shooting up downtown on the odd Saturdaynight.
In conclusion, it strikes me that if anyone is suspect, it turns out to be much more a case of government being suspect, rather than Mr.,Mrs., or Ms. Every Person being suspect. They might not always pick the right candidate at election time, however then hew closer to the law than many others do, especially those in government.