Just when I was thinking of selling my T-34

[kandrathe]

This is a good story kandrathe, but the point i was making is that these things you say are not clearly specified in the second amendment. Ergo, you give an interpretation an use a lot of ifs. And all those ifs are based on your views and not on the rights to bear arms.

Well, it's not really me. It's the writings and jurisprudence of the SCOTUS, and people involved with law going back hundreds of years. For example, from 1765, see William Blackstone's -- Commentaries on the Laws of England

Me personally? I think there is a reasonableness for citizens to be armed sufficient to defend themselves from the threats they face. We don't need tanks for everyday use. For all the political puppet theater in play now, the only provisions that Obama proposed that I'd question as unjustified would be the one restricting guns that look scary or carry more ammo. If you are looking at guns that commit murders, by far, it is hand guns in the urban areas. The entire category of rifles both sporting and other accounts for less than 3% of gun deaths. "Of all firearm-related crime reported to the survey, 86% involved handguns." The dangerous part of a gun is the bullet, the barrel, and the trigger -- all the rest is decorative wallpaper and ergonomic design.

You wouldn't be surprised to know that I have a number of guns locked safely away. Some of them are antiques that I inherited from my fathers father who bought them when he first came to the US, or from my mothers father who was a police officer for most of his life. They have sentimental value to me, but I don't plan on shooting them ( much). My father and I hunted together when he was still living, and my mother is a former pistol target ace who in her 80's still enjoys going to the range for some competitive target shooting. My dad had about a dozen hand guns before he died, and offered them to me -- and I said no -- they had no value to me. I also advised him to sell them, as I felt most of our other relatives were either untrained, or too tempestuous to perhaps not regret the decision. In his words, "I don't want to give a chainsaw to a 12 year old and expect him to not cut his leg off." Me and my two boys each currently have a BB gun, which we use to practice target shooting in the back yard on the weekend when the weather permits. Someday, when they are ready, they will graduate to .22 rifles. But, for now, the BB guns are a fun way to teach them range safety.

For gun sales between any two parties, it would be nice for the government to a) facilitate the felony criminal history background check, and b) ensure the successful background check information was not used to create a national gun register which could be misused. Currently all licensed gun dealers can do this for their own sales, so I would piggy-back private sales this way as a service much like the use of a notary public. Lawful gun owners don't want their guns to end up being used to commit crimes either.

The largest population of gun abuse is committed by criminals who have already been incarcerated and/or have domestic violence issues. If you want to cut down on deaths from guns, then start where they occur most frequently with criminals. A big help would be to figure out how to end the drugs prohibitions that are fueling the Mexican drug cartels, with the illegal smuggling of drugs into the US, and the return smuggling of guns into Mexico. You kill the drugs cartels by killing the black market. I would conservatively estimate that over half our crime, prison, and gun deaths problems are related to the sales and trafficking of illegal drugs.

Then, if you want to tackle the rare and highly sensationalized incidents of rampage killing or guns used in suicide, then we need to focus on how those mental health conditions occur and how to get those suffering into treatment (and possibly committed guardianship).

I'm also not opposed to promoting current technological advances that would make firearms safer, such as certain sophisticated biometric locking mechanisms that would render the gun useless in the wrong hands (e.g. children, attacker, stolen). It's cheap and reliable enough to implement for house and car door lock, so with a little engineering, I'm sure you could fit it into the grip or stock of a gun. The typical responsible gun owner doesn't want their guns misused either. If we make it desirable and easy, then everyone will jump on board with no need to cram it down societies throat with a law. I think for the type of gun that is kept in a dresser, and not in a safe, a trigger lock, or a biometric lock would be responsible. In law, however, this has been before the SCOTUS who ruled that requiring a gun to be locked up prevented it from being readily available for use in defending yourself.

So if one can argument that it is not a good idea to allow people to own patriot missiles or mortars i can argument that you can also just draw the line at knives, or clubs instead of automatic rifles.

Much of our social norms adhere to the more ancient laws of common sense.

And what would actually be good about allowing a technically sane militia member to own arms and not allowing someone that has been in prison for mail fraud to own one? Or even someone who served his time for any kind of crime? The chance a militia member misuses his firearm seems higher to me!

Felons can petition the State courts upon proof of their rehabilitation (some years of non-offense after probation) to have their rights returned, such as voting, or self defense, and etc. Until a person violates the trust of the society, we operate on the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. There is a problem in our legal systems where in the name of "getting tough on crime", we've made more, and more offenses "felonies" which is considered the most serious of crimes. There is no mechanism short of a presidential pardon to expunge a Federal felony conviction. But, then, this is another reason why the federal government should leave criminal matters to the states. Our federal government was never supposed to be in the role of domestic law enforcement.

One last thought: I haven't found any correlation in research of firearms misuse to people who may seem to belong to paramilitary or militia organizations. Anecdotally, it is probably the opposite actually. From the days when I lived in the rural boonies, the highest incidence of "gun nuts" and people who carry hand guns were also former military or off duty people who carry guns for their jobs. They are well trained, and they are used to having a weapon (safely) with them. It is no more logical to assume that all animal rights activists are potential bombers.