maester_millerFor Argument 2, this may get you labeled as some extreme/insane person, but I would argue that absolutely, we WOULD in fact be better off if private citizens had access to the most advanced military equipment available.
It would be cost-prohibitive for your average psychopath to purchase, say, a Stealth Bomber. That type of technology would only be available to someone with a very vast amount of resources, and those people are not likely to randomly decide to become supervillians, despite what Hollywood may suggest to us. Is there any particular reason that I should trust Barack Obama with a stealth bomber any more than I should trust Bill Gates with one?
As currently interpreted, the second amendment means nothing. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where the King of England, prior to the revolution, issued a decree granting the colonists “the right to bear arms.” Then, he sent his soldiers, armed with muskets, to every individual home and confiscated all the muskets and cannons that the colonists owned. If anyone complained, the King’s agents would simply reply that the WERE in fact allowed to bear arms, as they were being allowed to keep any swords, shields, and longbows. However, they couldn’t really expect private citizens to be allowed to own the same advanced technology that the government possesses, as that would just be dangerous and chaos would ensue.
Do you think anyone would have bought this argument as legitimate?
The founding fathers didn’t simply want the populace to be “armed” (which is a vague and meaningless term). They wanted it to be sufficiently armed as to be capable of successfully opposing the government.