A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Further editing was done on this article after first publishing. The changes are noted in italics.
The second amendment to the Constitution seems clear to me and anybody else that isn't a lawyer. They can't seem to understand much of anything about the constitution. The Supreme Court has held that this right extends to all the people, not just to an organized militia. But, being primarily lawyers, they have held that certain restrictions may be placed on selling and ownership of guns. I'm not sure how they arrived at that position which clearly infringes on the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.
Anyone who has studied even a little of American history knows why the States insisted on that amendment to the Constitution. They had just came out a brutal war and remembered well what the British had imposed on the Colonists. You will also notice that the Constitution makes no provision for the establishment of a standing Army, only that congress could raise and army and call up the militia when needed. The founding fathers feared the rise of a strong and dictatorial central government, so provisions were included in the Constitution to try to prevent that from occurring. The second amendment was one of those curbs on central power.
Every time there is some mass shouting there is an outcry for more restrictions on the sell and ownership of guns. That is isn't surprising. It's a knee jerk reaction to the horrific events which has occurred.
But, without completely trampling on the Constitution, it is hard to image a set of laws and/or regulations that will keep guns out of the hands of people who wish to commit crimes. It has been shown over and over again, that none of the proposed restrictions now in force, or proposed, would have prevented the mass shooting that have been experienced in the last few years. Furthermore, study after study has not been able to show any correlation between the presence or absence of gun laws and the incidence of gun related crimes. A result the gun control lobby hates. But, no matter the evidence, the gun control enthusiasts maintain that all we have to do is enact more laws and the problem will be solved.
If guns are available through any source, people who want to commit mayhem will get their hands on them. The world is awash with AK47's and their knockoffs.
It seems the only path that makes any sense is to go to the extreme one way of the other. Either (1) remove most restrictions on the buying and carrying of firearms, so that whole citizenry is potentially armed. Remove any requirement for a need to own and carry a gun. It is enough that the citizen feels they have a need for one. Background checks would still be accomplished by licensed gun dealers so the firearms don't fall into the hands of known criminals and other such risky individuals, or (2) restrict the selling and possession of any firearm that isn't a single shot device. I.e. a single action revolver or bolt/lever/pump action rifle or shot gun. All with limit of 6-8 rounds of ammo in the piece. The penalty for selling or even possessing any other type of weapon would have to made severe. And continue the current practice of issuing permits for the carrying of concealed firearms. This might pass Supreme Court muster, but I kind of doubt it. The Supreme Court, in every case, has come down on the side of the right of individuals to own guns. The second amendment doesn't specify what kind of guns that the government can't infringe, so just maybe, with the right Court it could squeak through.
Of course there exists a third option: repeal the 2nd amendment. That is the option that the majority of the gun control lobby would like. That's not likely to happen any time soon.
The first condition would be perfectly in accordance with the Constitution. I really don't know what the outcome would be, but I feel that it would really deter any nut who wants to walk into a crowded theater and cut loose. When a lot of people in that mob could be packing, that would really put a damper on any potential shooter. Experience has shown that the nuts who commit mass shootings in crowded places are looking for soft targets. Targets where the victims can't shoot back. In every case when someone shows up with a weapon, they bolt. They're not about to face somebody armed. Of course the antigun lobby would argue that we would be hit with a rash of impulse shootings. I really have my doubts about that. In spite of the Hollywood westerns, shootouts in bars from drunken, armed, people wasn't really the prevalent in the old west where packing a six gun was normal. Look at Texas, which has the loosest gun control laws in the country. In fact, in Texas, it is legal to have a gun in plain sight, if you have a carry permit. The gun related crime is not as bad in that state as it is many states with strict gun control legislation. And, incidentally, I don't recall any mass shooting occurring in Texas.
The second condition would really trample on the Constitution, but would have the effect of removing the automatic and semiautomatic firearms that are prevalent used in mass shootings, and in gang warfare. Reloading a six shooter or bolt action rifle takes time, A time where people can do something, escape or attack. Of course it wouldn't prevent individual crimes, murder, robbery and crimes of that source, but it would put a big damper on mass shootings. Enforcing laws of this type would be rather hard to do. Like I said the world is awash in assault rifles and automatic pistols.
When you get down to it, the mass shooting, which capture the medias attention are really an insignificant part of the overall problem. I think that a more realistic approach is not a whole new set of gun laws, which have the effect of making it hard for the individual to purchase a firearm for self-defense and does very little to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but rather, a severe crackdown on people who use a gun in committing a crime by increasing and enforcing the penalties associated with that use. Make it a federal offense so that after the state has their say in the commission of a state crime, the feds can then prosecute the criminal for use of a gun. Much as the race related crime is dealt with today in violation of civil rights laws. I think that such an approach would do more to reduce the use of guns than all the gun laws that can be passed could do. And, I feel that the NRA and the gun lobby would endorse such an approach, which would grease it's passage through the congress.
