Nit Pick
 

Seriously? I should not have to FIGURE OUT what this poster is saying. When someone enters this topic of conversation, (especially) genereralizations are worthless and dangerous. Say WHAT you mean. If you mean Semi, say Semi. If you mean long gun SAY long gun. Do not attack my clarifiaction post with your instructions and RULES on how I "should have responded." Just move along and complain somewhere else. And I don't appreciate the "sad on you" comment - that seems like an attack on a poster, which is against the rules on this forum.

Words matter. I’m shocked at how many people actually believe that semi-automatic rifles are not fully automatic. They do not understand the distinction. And to state that you used to be a hunter, then use automatic instead of semi-automatic, then follow up with long range(?) rifles tells an experienced gun handler that you’re not an ex hunter. You’re someone stating that you are so you can come across as “reasonable”.

Guns
 

The second amendment was never about hunting

You can also obtain an 8 shot speed reloading tube and refill that shotgun in seconds.

Well, we know who the expert is about guns and how to respond gently! So, long, powerful, assault, semi-automatic, automatic are all discussed, and all can kill people if used by a deranged person. This threads origin didn't even start with knowledge of what weapon was used. But what we now hear is that all the weapons this "EVIL" person bought were legal weapons. So, argue if you wish, but also consider that the weapons are said to be legally purchased by a person who supposedly was suicidal, and threatened to kill people in the past. And he still was approved to buy firearms. What it proves is that the approval process did not work well or at all. So, while the sides line up with their positions regarding types of guns are legal or not, it seems that a more significant point is our inability to even conduct a background check. Sounds like the government let us down by rubber stamp rules that would allow any nutcase to buy whatever they want legally. What was the procedure used for the background check? Who was the person who approved the request? Not saying that the nutcase would have been stopped by rejection, but quit fooling us and blaming only the firearm.

Yup. According to police statistics, the "well trained" police only hit their target 30% of the time...

Especially if you want to increase your credibility by saying "I am a hunter..."

So let's make more laws that won't be enforced...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Let's start by enforcing the laws already on the books.

I had friends that used to bring their guns in their vehicles to high school and NO ONE was ever killed much less threatened with any of them. We have a mental problem, not a gun problem.
No way were you ever a hunter using these terms and no way you hunted with an "automatic gun". Maybe during a war and you were hunting the enemy... but I doubt that very much. You wouldn't use the terms that you did.

Sorry to upset you, but you didn’t clarify, you just said they were wrong.

It also had nothing to do with personal ownership of guns. At that time no one ever questioned someone owning a gun. If you lived in the country and could afford it you had a gun.

The 2nd was all about a militia to protect the newly formed government from the loyalists. They couldn’t afford an army, so they legalized militia.

Also, there is writing indicating that the south was concerned that their slaves would run away if given the chance, so to get the south’s vote the 2nd was promised to insure the could have “militias” to keep the slaves from rebelling.

I agree with most of your post. I would 100% agree with a universal background check that included mental health considerations.

I don’t think mental health is the problem, but it contributes.

Well then by all means, let's put guns into the hands of teachers in classrooms filled with children. Because they'll do a much better job of hitting their target (and not an unintended victim) than the police will.

/sarcasm

Martin, I don't know where you are getting your information regarding the Constitution and our Bill of Rights, but it is just false. If you want to understand our Founding Fathers views of keeping and bearing arms simply read their written quotes below.

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined..."
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, son-in-law of John Adams, December 20, 1787

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824

"On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823

"I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence ... I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788

"I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers."
- George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."
- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."
- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789

"...the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone..."
- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
- William Pitt (the Younger), Speech in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783

“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."
- St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803

"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance ofpower is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves."
- Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War" in Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775

"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
- Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833

"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress 750, August 17, 1789

"For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, December 21, 1787

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair."
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28

"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
- Tench Coxe, Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789

I'll probably never understand why some people have a fascination with following and being so against changing laws made up by people that died over 150 years ago.