> IANAL but I’m pretty sure the second amendment only applies to guns; you can’t walk around with an RPG on your shoulder.

Surprisingly perhaps you can buy a military grade flamethrower complete with a napalm package: https://throwflame.com/ it's not even classified as a firearm, and is illegal in only two states I think.

I'm a gun owner myself, and I've (long ago) taken the stance that the 2A isn't really compatible with modern life, as the people who originally wrote it could not have anticipated the weapons militaries deploy today. It makes sense in my mind that it is Congress' responsibility to regulate what it reasonable weapons for civilized society.

There's a reason you can't just walk into a Wal-Mart and walk out with a machine gun, or a rocket launcher.

That said, I don't much care for the fact that the requirement to have legal access to machine guns is "be rich enough to buy your way around the law".

Personally, I do think we need a complete re-work of the way we treat weapons to reflect the realities of the modern world.

(1) We have four hundred million weapons in the United States. It is horribly negligent that safe weapon handling is not taught in schools, at multiple levels. Also a good touchpoint to get police interacting positively with the community.

(2) The current background check system should be replaced with a Swiss-style one; e.g., you get a code, valid for say a week or two, that any seller can use to verify that you have passed a background check.

This doesn't create a de-facto registry, so no problem getting gun owners (or the NRA) to go for this one.

(4) A red-flag law that allows immediate family members and healthcare professionals to temporarily bar an individual from purchasing weapons, with safeguards in-place to keep bad actors from abusing the system (e.g., a psychiatrist that just reports all of his patients to the system because he opposes gun ownership).

(5) Removing gun rights only in the case of violent crime. Right now, in most states, misdemeanor assault won't cost you your gun rights, but a felony for tax evasion will. That's ass-backwards.

(6) Machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers, and the like should be available with a license. You really need to be able to show that you can handle these things safely. Right now, it's just "be rich".

(7) Treat short-barreled rifles and shotguns as normal firearms, and silencers like any other accessory.

(8) Concealed-carry should be the same for police as it is for normal citizens. Same licensing requirements: a one-day course, including a test on safe weapon handling. This also ends gun-free zones: if you have a license, you can carry wherever you want.

(9) Open carry needs to work differently for urban and rural areas. The above permit will allow you to open-carry a pistol in an urban area. Rifles, no. Put it in a case. In the countryside, open carry just makes sense.

(10) Actually prosecute straw sellers. Buy a gun for somebody that can't legally buy one on their own, you permanently lose your gun rights, plus whatever punishment makes sense.

(11) Secure storage requirements. If one of your weapons is stolen and used for a crime, you are legally an accessory if you can not demonstrate that you took reasonable measures to store the weapon securely (e.g., a gun safe or lockable case). This doesn't require police inspections, but provides a strong incentive for personal responsibility.

All of this would enjoy massive support from gun owners, and address a lot of existing problems.

I may have missed my calling . . . .

That is where the saying comes from.

It can be more effective at clearing bunkers and closed rooms? The military were using these in WWII for trenches, bunkers, clearing brush. My friend's grandpa in US was operating one in the Pacific during WWII.

I just brought it was an example how something potentially more deadly than guns or RPGs is not much regulated and how laws are not very rational sometimes.

I recently purchased the Federalist Papers so I could have a better understanding of "how" to read it, what the context was, and what types of discussions to anticipate having with those who'd like to look at it differently

Also, why do they need to be purchased? Isn’t that information in the public domain? Surely enough time has passed and Alexander Hamilton’s family don’t need to continue to profit from it?

I'd rather have a new amendment then have judges be able to decide what the definition of arms is. Slippery slope. They really could one day decide that 'arms' is only muskets, or even just knives.

U.S. v. Miller loosely established the test (later solidified in 2008's Heller v DC) that weapons commonly used in militia service are inherently deserving of second amendment protections.

Miller, a known mobster who was caught with a sawed off shotgun lost his case because

a) the military testified that they had never used sawed off shotguns, so they were not useful to a military, ergo a militia (which was a lie -- they had used them, and found them useful for trench-clearing)

b) Miller's attorney was not very good, and didn't even challenge that testimony, much less so by totally disproving it -- I offer a little sympathy here as they didn't have Google at the time

Also noteworthy, Miller was actually dead when the decision came down, as he'd been murdered, and because /shrug, the trial kept going, but the defense (for obvious reasons) quit trying. He was sentenced in absentia.

Which I find just insane. People say no one wants to take Americans guns rights away, but we were literally one vote from effectively doing so.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illinois-town-votes-to-ban-assa...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_Unit...

This was true only between 2008 and 2010. In 2010, the Supreme Court clarified that it was incorporated against the states by the 14th Amendment.

And it was indeed the case well before 2008-2010. See United States v. Cruikshank (1875), Presser v. Illinois (1886), Miller v. Texas (1894).

so says you. it's not clear to me at all that militia members don't support collective action

Even the NRA removed references to that first clause from their material.

We do have definitions as to what militias are informed to us by writings of the founders, the federalist papers, previous drafts of the second amendment and, failing that, codified by law in 10 US Code § 311. The definition of militia there ("consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard") will likely have been expanded by our recent advances in military equality.

Gun rights antagonists tend to downplay that bit, as it implies an individual perspective that they find conceptually incompatible with tightly-controlled gun ownership permissions.

Strawmen are so unhelpful in reasonable debate.

Not all gun control advocates are either anti-second amendment, nor in favor of eliminating all guns. To say otherwise, creating a false black/white dichotomy in the gun debate, does a massive disservice to both gun advocates and gun control proponents.

Ironically, by making the choice "all guns" or "no guns", gun advocates themselves are forcing the "no guns" option to the center of the debate. As a wave of frustrated anti-gun youth become voters and reasonable political moderates look at options to "protect the children", I really think it's in gun proponents' best interests to provide a better alternative than "do nothing" on one side and "civil war" on the other.

At the end of the day, these stances, even the "moderate" ones you mention, are irreconcilable all the way down to first principles. If you are for gun control, you are necessarily for measures that will restrict the right to bear arms as it is recognized today, some more, some less, but restrictions on the right all the same.

There's no real evading that.

[1] https://pics.me.me/yes-i-do-want-to-take-away-youur-guns-you...

But that does not mean that everyone holds extreme positions, which is what you claimed.

Arguing that the extremes are the only options is a problem.

How productive would health debates be if the only two options presented were veganism and paleo? If the only sex ed options are abstinence or polyamory?

There must be room for compromise, or there is no debate, only argumentation.

That's not compromise, that's capitulation.

What concessions would gun rights advocates accept in order to allow some restrictions? What's there left to give on this issue that wouldn't undermine any controls.

Say, for example, I wanted gun owners/users to be required to be as responsible as car users, i.e. pass a test, maintain a license and registration for weapons and weapon users, and hold liability insurance to cover damage either intentional or accidental (that would obviously scale with the likelihood and amount of damage the gun can do). What can gun control advocates give that will get that done?

I think part of the reason the gun debate can be one sided from the "control" side is that the US already is quite far to the "rights" side of the spectrum, relative to the rest of the developed world. It can be difficult to see where we could plausibly move further in that direction without causing more of the problems we're (hopefully) all trying to solve: unnecessary bloodshed.

Another example I floated in previous threads is surfacing psychological issues in NICS checks (stuff like certain diseases or involuntary holds) and granting access to that system to everyday people rather than just retailers.

[1] https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/justice-scal...

I think for a weapon to be 'compliant' with US's second amendment a couple of criteria must be met

a) must be in current wide use in military

b) must be capable of being carried by a single person (which is why tanks and fighter jets will not qualify) This follows form 'individual' focus of the bill of right.

c) must be capable to aim it at a single person (which is why explosive or RPGs would not qualify). This follows from the notion that Bill of Right in general, does not condone collateral damage or collateral effect. As this is Individual's right, and therefore presumes individual's responsibility.

I also find this linguistic analysis of what 'bear arms' meant in 1791s, interesting/educational [2] http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=255

[1] - http://ia800500.us.archive.org/20/items/gov.uscourts.mad.135...

I believe GP was referring to times s/he's entered the US on a visitor visa of some sort.

It doesn't much matter. Even if somebody made the case that "crypto is a form of 'Arms', subject to 2A protection," the 2A doesn't grant an unregulated right to own whatever "arms" one chooses. All the rights granted by the Constitution are subject to reasonable regulation.

So, Congress could simply legislate a restriction on crypto, much as they have done with machine guns, grenades, and nukes.

The guns that a person are allowed to bear are nowhere near sufficient to take on the US military, and the modern arms such as encryption and freedom from surveillance are not even guaranteed by the 2nd amendment.

You're getting into spherical cow[1] territory if you think the US citizenry couldn't defeat the US military.

The US military will not be fighting the US citizenry in a hypothetical clean room, it'll be fighting in America. Who are you going to bomb, who are you going to strafe, when your opposition can quietly fade into the populace that provides your material?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

I'm tired of reminding HNers about Aghanistan.

Who has the better chance at ambushing and getting away with the enemys weapons: the one with the gun or the one without a gun?

Look at Turkey. The primary tool was encrypted communications and information dissemination. That’s modern power that citizens should have. Right now power comes from information and the preservation of speech and private communications, not a few handguns and rifles (or IEDs).

When the 2nd amendment was written a gun was relatively way more powerful than it is in today’s world. If you had a group of men with guns you were basically on par with the government military.

However, I'm not saying I'd want them a civil war, just that it failed despite doing everything "right" it seems.

Unless the US were to nuke itself, given the geography, a motivated citizenry could easily take on the US military. Not a scenario I want to imagine, but the US military has troubles in Afghanistan and Iraq — imagine that kind of conflict in the US. Just look at rebels in Syria to see this on a smaller scale.

WRT other rights... Explicitly? Not always in the Constitution. But, if you think you can cry "Fire!" in a theater, you would be mistaken.

SCOTUS has upheld reasonable restrictions on rights over and over. It's a settled matter.

(edited - cleaned up my thoughts a bit)

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

It ain't Dred Scott dumb, but it's up there in stupidity and retarded law.

Well regulated doesn't mean the feds get to control the details of what the militia can use either. The militia is every able-bodied 18-47 year old. The regulated part implies a command structure which the National Guard provides.

That's completely wrong. Each of the 1st ten Amendments - The Bill of Rights - enumerates rights of the individual against government power. Its absolutely absurd to argue that the 2nd amendment somehow refers to a government commanded and organized military body and not to the right of citizens to remained armed to prevent the government from getting out of line.

Chaplinsky v. NH was in 1942 and had nothing to do with draft dodging.

Since then, the courts have ruled inconsistently on the matter. The only common thread is the courts mostly agree that some restriction on speech is permissible - where that line lays is very much up for debate.

WRT the militia - the government disagrees with your assertion. A random citizen cannot go into the gun store and buy a machine gun, or grenades. Special (and expensive) permitting is required. If you're contention is that these restrictions are unConstitutional, I'm not really sure we should bother debating the point.

"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."

More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Munitions_List

[1]: https://www.xkcd.com/504/

One of the founding principles of American government was the freedom from state surveillance and intrusion into private homes. Nowadays, the federal government of the USA can legally use any technology that is patented, so why should they be allowed to restrict inventors from disclosing or selling IP that inhibits surveillance?

I’m sure people have been saying that for decades if not centuries. Terrible things just get declassified slowly so we only learn about them later.