Boston Marathon

[sweetts18]

Lmao... touche on the latter... yes, the laws regulating the sale/transfer/ownership of fully automatic. (and other) firearms here in the states IS countable ...but you go ahead and start counting the applicable laws and ordinances on them... see you in a month or two.

[trish]

The more restrictions, the better. Continuum many restrictions wouldn't be enough...unless we just simply restrict from all non-military use no exceptions no matter how loudly the NRA complains.

[sweetts18]

And "keep" means just that: to own, to possess... to have. ...trust me, that's EXACTLY what the founding fathers meant.

[trish]

So military personnel who keep weapons, own those weapons? Can they sell them? Pawn them? Give them away? Melt them down?

[sweetts18]

...how about the word "not", or the phrase "the people"... as in "the right of THE PEOPLE to KEEP AND BEAR arms, shall NOT be infringed."

[sweetts18]

And no... the people in the military don't own those weapons... they don't keep them either... that firearm belongs to the people.

[trish]

And no... the people in the military don't own those weapons... they don't keep them either...

Ah but they do KEEP them. "Keep" has a more a complex contour of meaning then you might find convenient. If you want to bear fully automatic weapons join the military. Anyone can. No infringement.

[sweetts18]

Let me tell you something... I.. like most Americans, have no desire for an automatic firearm... I've spent time operating them, and honestly, unless there are a lot of bad guys, you're pretty much wasting ammunition. ...BUT your point is pretty much invalid, because almost nobody has a fully automatic weapon here in utopia.

[trish]

...your point is pretty much invalid, because almost nobody has a fully automatic weapon here in utopia.

That would make my point (whatever you take it to be) mute, not invalid.

My points have been

1) If you increase the availability of firearms in a society, then (all things being equal) the number of deaths caused by firearms will measurably increase. Replace "firearms" with "paper clips" and the rate of increase in paper clip deaths may not be measurable (though do keep in mind paper clips are a choking hazard and you may not want to make them readily available to toddlers).

2) The Second Amendment is a result a compromise. That's why it's brief and ambivalent. You cannot say your know exactly what the "founding fathers" meant because the "founding fathers" were not of one mind.

As far as I can see, your reply hasn't touched upon their validity nor their relevance in any possible way.

[sweetts18]

First... the word you're looking for is "moot." ...second: “On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”