Wednesday, November 21, 2007

More on Possible Outcomes on the Second Amendment

Well, there could be another outcome of the US Supreme Court Case. It's highly unlikely, but considering that the purpose of the second amendment is:

  1. Protect the People from the Government
  2. Protect the United States from foreign subjugation
One could reasonably expect that the founding fathers deemed that the arms to be kept by the people, by their nature, need to be of military relevance to be useful in a militia. This is also what I typically say to those that the second amendment counts only for arms of the time - i.e. Muskets. Anyone who has studied history would know that anyone shot with a black powder firearm is in a world of hurt too, and the wounds they leave significantly less humane than a modern firearm.

If this is the outcome, we could see the legal definition of "machine guns" and "assault weapons" being made completely legal, and the remainder of the firearms be deemed "not militarily relevant" and thus subject to regulation. The USA would turn to Switzerland...

"Sorry son, you can't buy that little pistol. But we have this M249 machine gun on special..."

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posted by jaydub at 1:51 PM

3 Comments:

Blogger lextalionix said...

But Pistols, shotguns, long range hunting (i.e. sniper) rifles are all part of the military training and arsenal. So, if it goes bang, and throws lethality, then it can be defined as of "military" value. Same for knives, garrote's, etc. So, in for a penny, in for a pound - eh ?

11:02 AM  
Blogger Joseph Katz said...

In Israel every citizen is required military service and when they leave the military they keep their machine gun. This is one reason hitch hiking is a preferred method of travel, buses are high profile targets (take out 40+ people) but every car or truck is likely to have a machine gun under the seat.

You ain't messing with that.

2:51 PM  
Blogger jaydub said...

Lawrence,

Sure, but that mini-sized .32 caliber pistol can be argued to have little military value. Were the judgment to come out that way, you can be sure that the assumption-of-irresponsibility side would try to get the definition as narrow as possible. I would think it funny though - no more small pistols, only big ones.

Joseph, this is also true in Switzerland (except for terrorist attacks), but most have rifles capable of automatic fire, not machine guns in the military sense. Either way, that works ;)

12:08 PM  

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