I haven't weighed-in on the topic itself and I apologize if I cover old ground because of my absence, but...
I don't support the second amendment in its current form/interpretation. I think that it is an anachronism that no longer applies to the way our country works. There are two basic arguments for it: revolting and protection:
While the revolutionary war was a popular insurgency, the Civil War was not - it was fought between two trained armies. The idea of a popular insurgency actually defeating a committed modern military today is just silly. Remember, we're not talking about an Iraqi insurgency or USSR vs Afghanistan situation - can you imagine a popular insurgency advancing on and trying to take Washington DC? It just isn't possible.
As for basing the right to bear arms on protection, protection and safety go hand in hand and need to be weighed against each other. It is one thing to keep a shotgun in your closet to protect your home and quite another to keep a Glock in your purse. With the shotgun you have a decent chance of protecting your home - with that Glock in your purse, odds are good that you'll die or you'll kill trying to use it against someone also armed with a gun.
And that's to say nothing of gun accidents and gun crime itself. Many gun statistics and analogies thrown around by gun advocates are straw-men. Some of the more common (some seen in this thread):
-Cars kill more people than guns. Car manufacturers put considerable effort into making cars safer. Gun manufacturers put considerable effort into making guns deadlier (more on that later...). At the same time, cars require testing, licensing, safety inspections, etc. Those things should be bare minimum requirements for gun ownership: even if something is a right, that doesn't mean it isn't regulated. The gun lobby has succeeded in preventing even the most basic of product safety legislation on guns:
Most consumers are shocked to learn that their refrigerators, cars, and children's teddy bears are more regulated than guns. The objective of MCC’s Firearms Safety Project is to redefine gun policy to include the view that gun safety can be regulated. The history of consumer product regulation teaches that a significant number of deaths, injuries and illnesses can be prevented as a result of health and safety standards. The consumer product approach has worked to reduce product-related death and injury for thousands of other products, we believe it will work with guns.
Guns kill or injure more than 90,000 Americans each year. Yet, guns are virtually the only consumer product not regulated for health and safety. Congress has given regulatory authority to federal agencies to assure that almost all consumer products in America are safe. For example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulates the safety of nearly 15,000 consumer products used in or around the home. But no federal agency has the power to ensure that guns manufactured and sold are safe.
http://www.massconsumers.org/gunsregulation.html
-Guns are for protection, not killing (often with stats, as provided by Cyrus). Absurd deflection. Just because a nuclear weapon doesn't get launched doesn't mean its purpose isn't death. Guns (most guns) are designed for killing. Most guns that aren't designed for killing are designed for practice for killing. That's their purpose - their reason for existence.
-Gun violence isn't that bad. Cyrus's "Myth #3". Just read the quotes:
Homicide rates have been stable to slightly declining for decades except for inner city teens and young adults involved with illicit drug trafficking.
A declining problem, sure, but just because it is declining doesn't make it not a problem.
We have noticed that, if one subtracts the inner city contribution to violence, American homicide rates are lower than in Britain and the other paragons of gun control.
Come again? If we subtract most of our gun crimes from our gun crime stats, our gun crime stats are not as bad as Britains? How is that a fair way to compare them?
The actual causes of inner city violence are family disruption, media violence, and abject poverty, not gun ownership.
And that matters, why? That doesn't mean the crimes don't still happen and matter.
Cyrus said:
Why don't you argue a valid point for a change. Like proper training so that it is much harder for criminals to steal guns from people who LEGALLY own them and pose no threat to society. Why don't you argue against the ILLEGAL trafficking of guns in urban areas. Why don't you argue against minors getting their hands on guns. Why don't you arguet against irresponsible dealers who sell guns to people that are not legally allowed to buy a gun. Why don't you argue that there are not enough checks to see if a person is suddenly buying too many guns at one time, implying that they might be illegally selling them on the streets.
All of those are great ideas. But would the NRA support such ideas? The NRA's lobbying power - the NRA writes many of our gun laws itself, specifically to make them useless - is simply too great for meaningful change. In fact, many of those things you list, the NRA (and a great many gun owners), would argue are unConstitutional.
I want to make myself clear: I'm not against using guns for protection in limited circumstances. I'm not against hunting. I'm not against target shooting. But there are serious flaws to the logic behind the sanctity of the 2nd Amendment in its present form/interpretation.
