Proper training,and common sense would go a long way to reduce firearms N.D.'s (Negligent or Accidental Discharges).

Novel Idea:

Allow law abiding citizens with a clean criminal record to own guns. Anyone who tries to own a gun through legal means must first go through a firearms safety course where they are taught proper handling of their firearms AND what their rights are by the letter of the law as to the extent of bearing their arms.

Fact: It is far far more likely that those willing to use guns to commit crimes will obtain that gun illegally, which undermines our efforts to enforce firearms safety in the States.

An attempt to disarm the citizenry will not stop black market arms trade in America unless everyone cleaves to an unconditional search of their person and property.

Then again, prohibition did wonders as well as the great idea of making abortion illegal. :)

Deadman: Oh hon, that's sweet of you to say, but I doubt any amount of training can do away with my tendency to be unnaturally and extremely accident prone. People get nervous enough when I handle kitchen knives, and with good reason. I have a giant scar on my right thumb where I nearly lost it from a drinking glass when I was just trying to wash the damned thing. [It shattered in my hand. I only learned later that glass that old tends to do that, without warning. Could have used that information earlier..]

Don't get me wrong; I don't mind learning self-defense or being safe. But really, the safest thing for me and those around me is for me to never ever EVER pick up a loaded weapon. Just...not ever, if I can possibly help it.

Now, this is very interesting. It's been a while since I've actually read the second amendment itself. By and by, the language I'm reading almost sounds more like a state has a right to its own state funded militia. This almost sounds like the national guard, but somehow, I don't feel that the national guard or a state funded militia should augment the efforts of a federal military.

Nowhere in the language am I reading anything about the right to actually own a firearm at all. The part even slightly implying that is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms", which sounds more like a nebulous statement of ambiguity. However, my understanding of what is being said is that basically, "The people of a state have an unquestionable right to have a state funded militia. That a state has a right to defend a state's sovereignty from a foreign or domestic power that attempts to usurp the autonomy of that state."

I'm now in doubt that there's anything in the constitution or the bill of rights that is supposed to allow citizens to privately own firearms at all.

I'm on the fence with this one now.

I wasn't sure what you were talking about, Desp, and I'm still not sure, but I re-read this thread and found one of those little Deadman jewels, I can't believe I forgot about it.

Here's his most Glenn-Becky moment ever:
Those are consecutive posts, by the way.

A well-regulated militia implies an organized militia, which would currently be the National Guard. The phrase "keep and bear arms" usually referred to a military application at the time period the second amendment was written. While I don't believe the second amendment implicitly provides the right to private ownership of firearms by ordinary civillians, the ninth amendment may be seen as a loophole.

So what you're getting at is because the common understanding of it by a majority is to say that a private citizen can indeed own a gun, that under the 9th, the 2nd means explicitly that as well?

Interesting. Though KY law does allow people like Deadman to carry firearms in public, which currently makes any debate about it constitutionally a moot point.

Fact is, Deadman has a right in KY to walk around with a loaded gun that he lawfully owns in public.

I'm going to have to start keeping an eye out for gun-waving maniacs at my local bookstores.

Indeed. You know, because people in KY who own guns parade around wantonly waving their guns all over the place. ESPECIALLY in Boarders. Bookworms beware.

They're using "State" in the sense of "nation" not in the sense of "the state of Kentucky".

"A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of the State (comma!) the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

ie: "since it's necessary to have a standing army to protect the country, people can have guns too, (in case there's ever a need for a second revolution)"

Not siding with deadman here, but that's what the amendment says (and implies). America had just fought a war for independence. Our entire system is pretty much designed to check the power of the federal government. This is just another check.

I thought it was designed just in case the British came back rather than keep the actual government in check.

But Saya, that sentiment implies that they it's reactionary. I would imagine that since they decided to make their own country that they considered threats to liberty being foreign and domestic, not just British. To think it was just British is kind of laughable.

You see, I thought that their meaning of "the people" implied the state as in smaller governments ie the actual states. They should have used the "populace" instead of People. People implies a nation sometimes.

I've yet to assume that the second amendment condones vigilantism.

So armed militants opposing the government is constitutional and not a ticket to getting arrested and being held in jail indefinitely? Didn't this just recently happen?

You can be armed and oppose the government, (and there are plenty of groups which do, and are not in jail) You just can't be armed, oppose the government, and actually revolt or break laws without consequences.

The founders had just fought a massive war for independence against what was essentially, a despotic government as far as they were concerned.

If you look at the way the United States government is set up, the system is full of "Checks and Balances" (to use a grade-school term). The idea was to have a system which prevented single classes, organizations, and people from completely dominating the political power at any one time. The US government structure is positively (almost obsessively) full of them.

Consider the second amendment as a failsafe/deterent, yes it also kept the nation prepared for another British incursion, but it also kept them prepared because the founders reasoned that there might come a time when a second revolution was necessary.

The idea was to spread out the power as far as possible among the citizens, while still preventing mob rule and maintaining a functioning government.

Basically, the executive, judicial, and legislative branches all check each other, the executive and the legislative are checked by the people (elections), everyone is checked by the constitution, which is in turn checked by everyone else, since it can be amended. And the people are allowed to remain armed in case everything fails and we need to hit the reset button.

Does it always work? No, but it is a pretty goddamn ingenious system.

The Second Amendment is clearly outlining that the ownership of firearms is an individual citizens right,The same as the first and fourth amendments, your explanation alone backs this claim.

Want to know how Captain crazy jumped to this conclusion?

Who makes up the population of a state?

Individual Citizens.

Yeah, that is a pretty crazy way to come to that conclusion.

Before that I was Lt. Crazy...

I got promoted.

Okay, that's pretty funny.

Props.

I thought about this after I posted....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD36ZhpHPpE

Just put in Crazy instead of Caveman and you get the basic idea.

Sorry about that everybody....

Back to the topic at hand.

Pro-gun/Anti-gun?

Attack on a California Medical Marijuana Patient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe6v2TWbkhU

There was an article in The New Republic that I really liked, and it seemingly had a good interpretation of the Bill of Rights:

But, when the Constitution speaks of "the people" rather than "persons," the collective connotation is primary. "We the People" in the preamble do ordain and establish the Constitution as public citizens meeting together in conventions and acting in concert, not as private individuals pursuing our respective hobbies. The only other reference to "the people" in the Philadelphia Constitution of 1787 appears a sentence away from the preamble, and here, too, the meaning is public and political, not private and individualistic. Every two years, "the people"--that is, the voters--elect the House. To see the key distinction another way, recall that women in 1787 had the rights of "persons" (such as freedom to worship and protections of privacy in their homes) but did not directly participate in the acts of "the people"--they did not vote in constitutional conventions or for Congress, nor were they part of the militia/people at the heart of the Second Amendment.

The rest of the Bill of Rights confirms this communitarian reading. The core of the First Amendment's assembly clause, which textually abuts the Second Amendment, is the right of "the people"--in essence, voters--to "assemble" in constitutional conventions and other political conclaves. So, too, the core rights retained and reserved to "the people" in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were rights of the people collectively to govern themselves democratically. The Fourth Amendment is trickier: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Here, the collective "people" wording is paired with more individualistic language of "persons." And these words obviously focus on the private domain, protecting individuals in their private homes more than in the public square. Why, then, did the Fourth use the words "the people" at all? Probably to highlight the role that jurors--acting collectively and representing the electorate--would play in deciding which searches were reasonable and how much to punish government officials who searched or seized improperly. An early draft of James Madison's amendment protecting jury rights helps make this linkage obvious and also resonates with the language of the Second Amendment: "[T]he trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the rights of the people, ought to remain inviolate." Note the obvious echoes here--"security" (Second Amendment), "secure" (Fourth Amendment), and "securities" (draft amendment); "shall not be infringed," "shall not be violated," and "ought to remain inviolate"; and, of course, "the right of the people" in all three places

Source: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/second-thoughts

I thought it was an interesting read, anyway.

So you're saying you agree with the idea that some rights are more equal than others?