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I'm not all that concerned with what the "accepted social norm" is to be quite honest.
Oh well. Too bad. It doesn't matter if they see a reason to be armed.... My right to arm myself doesn't rely on them seeing a reason.
Doesn't matter, they don't need to know anything about me. All they need to know is the law.
See you just aren't getting it. I don't care what the vast majority of people think or feel. I don't need their approval, nor do I want it.
As long as I am not breaking any laws or violating the wishes of a private property or business owner, I can carry a gun wherever I want and It's no one elses business.
End of story.
It's really that simple.
No offense intended but you sound like exactly the kind of person I don't feel comfortable with strutting around my family with a loaded gun.
I fully support the right to own a firearm and I own several myself.
But I do not support openly carrying firearms in places where they are normally never carried and where no one else deems it necessary to carry one. That's purely provocative.
That should be a one size fits all rule. I can't think of any case where toting an AR-15 in a Walmart is necessary or appropriate.
My argument from the beginning has been that I am NOT against gun ownership and I certainly am not advocating gun prohibition. I simply want gun CONTROL!!! Meaning, I want universal background checks. I know people are going to say that we already have that. ....
The rest of your long post was addressed but I want to add to this. Do you want gun registration? Because it is impossible to have universal background checks without national registration.
If the 2A didn't apply to the states at the time of it's ratification, it certainly did after the Fourteenth amendment.
Actually the 2nd amendment always did apply to all governments in the U.S. - Federal, State, and local. Unlike the 1st amendment, which only applied to the Fed govt when it was ratified. (The 14th amendment later changed that.)
In fact, that's exactly what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Bill of Rights, particularly the 1st amendment. It starts, "Congress shall make no law......". Meaning, the Federal government was forbidden impose or to interfere with religion, free speech, free press etc., all the things that were listed in the First Amendment.
And why? Well, for the example of religion... most of the states at that time, had official state religions. And the 1st amendment was carefully written to NOT interfere with that fact.
OTOH, the 2nd amendment does NOT start with the phrase, "Congress shall make no law...". Unlike the 1st amendment, the 2nd was designed to forbid ALL governments in the U.S. (Federal, State, and local) from infringing the people's right to keep and bear arms.
The 14th amendment changed the scope of the 1st amendment, extending its prohibitions to the states and local governments too. But the 2nd amendment was unaffected by the 14th, since it ALREADY applied to all governments in the U.S.
Most other amendments in the BOR never contained language restricting them to the Fed govt only, the way the 1st does. They had always applied to Federal, state, and local govts, and so the 14th did not affect them.
Most of us don't disagree that "reasonable restrictions" are necessary. The problem is, there are a whole lot of opinions on what is "reasonable".
Very true.
And the way the conflict is resolved, is by letting the law-abiding people who are being restricted, decide themselves what they will allow.
When a case is brought before them where someone says another guy has violated his rights, let a jury decide on a case-by-case basis.
If it's a right that the Constitutiona has flatly commanded that no government shall have ANY say in whether or how it is "restricted", then letting the people decide, is about the only method you have left, isn't it?
If government has no power to restrict a right, but the people (as in, say, a legally-convened jury) DO have the power... then why do you keep trying to assign the job to government???
The rest of your long post was addressed but I want to add to this. Do you want gun registration? Because it is impossible to have universal background checks without national registration.
A national registration would be ideal. I can hear the naysayers say that is impossible. The arguments I have been hearing is that universal background checks is impossible so we shouldn't do anything to address the problem of gun violence in this country. In fact, in my morning paper there was an article about another mass shooting. It happens so frequently lately that everyone seems to be numb to the fact. Oh well, that is just the way it is rather than trying to DO SOMETHING to address the problem. I am not so naive to think that gun violence will go away entirely. I just think there are measures that we, as a nation can make to prevent some of that violence from happening in the first place. And universal background checks is the first step in that process. And if you are think that you are of sound mind to own a gun, then you shouldn't have a problem passing a background check. Or maybe many of the gun owners who don't like the idea of universal background checks are afraid they won't pass.
No offense intended but you sound like exactly the kind of person I don't feel comfortable with strutting around my family with a loaded gun.
That's ok, your comfort and approval is not needed.
Last edited by WhipperSnapper 88; 04-30-2014 at 02:46 PM..
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