I support the second amendment to the federal constitution, which says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The wording affirms that the right to bear arms is a natural right, not granted, but simply recognized, by the constitution. This means that no state should have the power to infringe that right.
But what are arms? To me, arms are guns of a size and weight that can be carried in the “arms” of one person. That excludes canon, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and the like. It does not exclude guns that the government may object to, such as automatic weapons, assault rifles, high-energy rounds, large-magazines, and sniper rifles. Therefore, a ban on these weapons is unconstitutional.
Of course, arms technology has advanced far beyond anything the writers of the constitution envisioned; all they had were muskets. But it doesn’t mean we can ignore the constitution. That would give government license to do anything it wants, including confiscate all guns. The constitution is the people’s only defense against tyranny. So if you don’t like what the constitution says, work to amend it. Personally, I prefer to keep the second amendment as written.
Gun control advocates claim that a gun-free society would be safer. They favor registering, then confiscating, all guns. I disagree. Gun laws only serve to disarm honest citizens, not criminals. A disarmed citizenry is less able to defend itself against criminals. This is evident now in England, which is seeing its murder rate soar, after recently disarming its citizens. Washington DC banned hand guns in 1976, yet leads the nation in murder rate. In contrast, Switzerland has the most guns per household, and the lowest crime rates in Europe.
Gun control advocates quote statistics about gun deaths which are often misleading. For example, they include legitimate self defense and suicide deaths in their gun-death totals, they include teenage gang war deaths in their child death totals, and they compare gun deaths by country without regard to population size. If gun deaths are as serious a problem as claimed, why the need for deception?
But what about assault rifles that can pierce body armor and kill cops? Shouldn’t we be banning those? No, those problems are an unfortunate outcome of our government's unconstitutional and immoral drug war. End the drug war, and the killing on both sides will stop.
Did I say the constitution is the people’s only defense against tyranny? There is one other final defense: an armed population. True patriots will not register or abandon their guns.