When you are required to get a license to cast your ballot or attend your church, then you can make the argument for getting a license to purchase a firearm.
> Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller#...
this is considerably more limited than the restrictions on attending churches. w.r.t voting, you do need to register ahead of time and in some states you may even have to show a photo ID, though this is under debate.
I'd imagine it's something that won't be out of the question in about 20-40 years. Gun owners are overwhelmingly white, male and older. A demographic that is dying of old age.
This is something that often goes without mentioning, so thanks for bringing it up.
The founders were not idiots. They did not want to create a set of stone tablets, a collection of unchangeable holy texts. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution were intended to be changeable, living documents, adaptable to the times.
Maybe it's time to question whether or not the status quo can scale and remains consistent with our societal values.
[1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/07...
Also, all the rights listed in the first ten amendments are limited to the point at which you're infringing on someone else's rights. The threat of death or injury, such as it is, would seem to be a pretty clear reason to limit that right.
If you fail to operate it properly, I could be struck by a bullet fired by you at somebody else.
2nd Amendment absolutists love talking about their rights, but spend precious little time talking about the responsibilities that come with them. Which are (or should be) significant, when the right you are talking about is the right to wield a lethal weapon.
"for some reason gun advocates think that the right to bear arms is the only constitutional right that is virtually without limit. You have the right to practice your religion, but not if your religion involves human sacrifice. You have the right to free speech, but you can still be prosecuted for incitement or conspiracy, and you can be sued for libel. Every right is subject to limitation when it begins to threaten others, and the Supreme Court has affirmed that even though there is an individual right to gun ownership, the government can put reasonable restrictions on that right."
EDIT: The word I used was threat, which, if arguing in good faith, you would have read as "actual risk", rather than "angsty feelings".
I also qualified it with the phrase such as it is. Which, again in good-faith discourse, means "if it exists" or "whatever form it takes".
But do continue to tell me more about how I feel.
For one thing, there are multiple restrictions on freedom of speech. Maybe you think those oughtn't exist, but we're talking about the status quo, not ideal worlds.
This is not to mention the idea that there are multiple ways to adjudicate whether this means "all guns" or "some guns," since there's quite a difference between an assault rifle or handgun and a simple rifle. Then there's the "well-regulated militia" piece.
I'm not advocating for any particular reading. Rather I disagree that the Bill of Rights ought to be the last word in any discussion. I think the Bill of Rights is better suited to a starting point, and the history of the judiciary in this country seems to bear this out in practice.
To turn this round, this constitutional right is the reason that Americans are allowed to own weapons that are normally used in warzones at the age of 18 and without any safety measures. The world has changed since the constitution was written. If you were writing it today, would you still include the right to bear arms?
Somehow, these actions always happen to disarmed people....
They are, at least here, truly "unthinkable", for "it can't happen here" without a preceding confiscation of the nation's guns. Which is a sufficient tripwire to provoke a counter-revolution to stop things from ever getting that nasty.
One might also look at the Swiss experience.
