Quote:
Originally Posted by golfing eagles
Wrong and wrong. That's NOT what the 2nd amendment states or means. At the time it was written, we did not have a standing army. "Militias" were raised when a call went out for volunteers, many of whom were just farmers and frontiersman. That "militia" did not have an arsenal to hand out guns, the volunteers had to bring their own. Therefore, INDIVIDUALS were guaranteed the right to "bear arms", not just "state militiamen". In 1787, unless you were a city dweller, a gun was a necessity---hunting for food, protection against whomever, etc. Even 100 years later in the "wild west", the 2 most heinous crimes (punishable by hanging) were horse theft and gun theft, because without either you had a very short life expectancy. As Obi Wan Kenobi siad to Anikan Skywalker in Star Wars episode 2 after retrieving his light saber---"This weapon is your life"
Full disclosure----I've never even held a gun in my hand.
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Good points.
Another point that could be made, in relation to the ones in this post, regards the actual weapons themselves. People sometimes state that the Second Amendment was written to reflect the arms of the time, muzzle-loading muskets, shotguns, the ubiquitous "Brown Bess" British musket which was used by the British (and some of the opposing colonists as well). True enough. But what ISN'T mentioned is the fact that a lot of the colonists used the Pennsylvania Rifle, which was a far superior weapon to the Brown Bess. The Bess was accurate to maybe 50 yards. After that it was anyone's guess as to where the ball was going. The Pennsylvania Rifle, on the other hand, was accurate to several hundreds of yards beyond that.
The point is that, at the time the Second Amendment was written, the American colonists possessed a weapon that was in many ways SUPERIOR to the best the British armies had.