I'm not sure why I keep seeing the same ignorant arguments all the time, when I've pointed out the huge flaws. I guess that people that are afraid of others having the right to protect themselves (and that's the point, it's built in) are also incapable of reading and thinking.

Let's put this simply.

1) The militia was the "free men" of a town or village who owned their own firearm. In times of war or stress, they could/would get together to practice. It is not, and has never been, "The National Guard". The National Guard is both the military of the state (the government) and the backup military for the federal government. Note that they keep being pulled up and sent with the main military out of the country. That means they are, essentially, federal troops. Not a militia, until they leave the military.

In fact, militia groups that have organized to get together to practice, and even obtain land for the purpose of practicing together, have been repeatedly shut down by the state and federal authorities. So apparently THEY don't believe that there's such a thing as an organized militia as well. Therefore, go back to the original definition.

2) "Assault weapons". This is a made up term created by the mass media, just as erroneous as calling a handgun an 'automatic'. To make a rifle an assault weapon, you add a bipod mount and a heat baffle. Suddenly, it's now an assault weapon and unnecessary for someone to own. AR-15, M16, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, M14 (M1A). These are all semi-automatic rifles, and they could all be called "assault weapons".
Note: A carbine, essentially, is a lighter weight rifle. Look at a picture of an M1 Carbine vs an M1 Garand. The M1 Garand was a .30-06 caliber round (7.62x63 for those unfamiliar with calibers). That's a reasonably standard hunting round. My mother grew up with .30-30 and/or .30-06 owned by every family in the area. If you know a hunter, they own an 'assault rifle', in media parlance. They're also not automatic. Fully automatic weapons have been enormously restricted for private ownership in the US since the 1920's. You -can- buy them, but there's a license fee, additional checks, additional requirements for storage (Unless locked up at home, you can't let it more than something like 10 feet from you, even taking it to the bathroom with you at a range), and so forth. They're also almost all very old, like Tommy guns.) Automatic weapons are also stupid. They're only useful in a crowded elevator.

3) The Second Amendment. I'm now seeing people in other countries screaming for the same stuff that people in the US do. That is, laws and restrictions. Despite what people claim, the Second Amendment has NOTHING to do with muzzle loaders. If that were the case, by 1870, you'd have found that nobody could own a gun other than the military. It was accepted that _all_ personal weapons were covered. This was not a problem until the 1920's - the growth of the Federal bureaucracy and enforcement branches. Suddenly, they realized that the weapons were intended for use against THEM. This was, in fact, by design.

There is only ONE way to change the Constitution. That is, to pass a Constitutional Amendment, modifying it. The Second Amendment is very clear, and explained clearly through a set of documents written at the time by the traitors Hamilton and Adams. (I call them that because they violated what they were told to do by the States in creating the Constitution rather than modifying the Articles of Confederation. ) If you don't know anything about the US, download and read that set of papers. So, the 2nd Amendment states that the "right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." People keep pointing to the first part, the need for a militia. They ignore the second part, which is AFTER a comma, that states "the people". Not "the people in a militia", not "the people in the military". Just "The people" - this was argued in D.C. vs Heller, and was agreed that "people" meant "people". Not just who the _government_ wants to be people.

Using this statement, -any- gun laws are infringements. People argue that they couldn't mean high grade weapons, but again, that's violating the written (and unwritten) intent of the amendment. These were people that lived through overthrowing their government once, and they wanted to be able to do it again.

For those who keep arguing and arguing about it - the founding fathers, as they were called, plus the authors of the Constitution, were alive for decades past the Revolution. They saw the development of firearms happening. (flintlock to caplock, multi-barreled guns). The only things that were fought out in the courts were that crew served weapons (cannons) were NOT covered under the 2nd amendment, and could not be in private hands on land. (A group salvaged cannon from a sunken warship to use for their town, and they were confiscated). Enacting laws to restrict the 2nd Amendment are -treason-. It's the same as if they pass laws banning Baptists from going to church. It is a direct violation of the Constitution.

You CAN enact additional laws, and many of them would make sense, because they don't directly interfere with 'keep and bear'. 1) Require all people to take a gun safety course. This doesn't involve learning how to shoot, it's learning how to be safe around a gun. That is, how do you handle it, unload it, storage, etc. As a previous poster mentioned, she went and bought a gun WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. (of course, she then blamed that on the gun) 2) Require that all law enforcement branches provide basic gun training at publicly accessible ranges, for a reasonable sum. (I don't expect them to provide free training. Ammunition is expensive, and people wanting to learn how to shoot should pay for themselves. This is the largest restriction out there for gun ownership - the cost of actual shooting. Firing 500 rounds through one of my guns would triple the cost of buying the gun itself)

Right now, people actually denigrate those looking to learn. I push this constantly to those people I know, even ones that hate guns, and never want to own one. Learn how they work, and not only do you become less afraid of them, you'll now know what to do if your kid comes across one, or you come across one, or you're confronted by one.

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Now, back to those 'more people killed by firearms than cars' - That's untrue. I pulled the same federal data on automobile deaths that was used by people for firearms deaths. 2.1 million vs 1.5 million, with _more than half_ of those firearms deaths being suicide according to the feds. Those shouldn't be included under firearms deaths, because they are suicide, and what was used isn't that important. If they didn't have a gun, they'd have used some other method, just probably less messy. So, now we're at 750,000 firearms deaths to 2,100,000 automobile deaths. (you could probably take a few thousand out for suicide by car) As there have always been more firearms than cars, we're not even in the same ballpark in 'deaths per device'.

I will admit that something is weird right now. If you look at the 'mass deaths' (which to the media is at least two people injured, and it has to be from firearms), they've all ramped up since the election of Joe Biden. Do I know why? No. All I know is that prior to that time, they were spread out in time. Not clustered together. It could be someone playing on the mentally ill to drive an agenda, it could be stress from the economy, it could be aliens beaming mental control rays from Venus.

Mental health. Do you REALLY think that the 'no-guns' people care about mental health? If anything, they want more and more things to happen to push their own agenda. They're not interested in helping anyone but themselves and their personal fears of what will happen to their power. It's the same with the "no-nukes" people, which are often the same people that push wind and solar power. They aren't interested in real solutions, they want to show their power. If they were interested in health, they'd put together relatively inexpensive programs to at least try to identify those with issues. Use Federal owned buildings already here, and set up the equivalent of AA meetings with sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

Right now, a lot of people are under a lot of stress, and have been since the economy tanked. Housing prices and everything else rising, and businesses not having as lucrative jobs available as before. Does that contribute? Sure. Do I think there needs to be something to be done? Yes, and the number one thing that could be done is the media stop fear mongering, and start putting forth more information on how to help people, and the good things happening, rather than on the "If it bleeds, it leads". We're becoming more and more an insulated society - that is, we don't interact with people. Go home, order from online services for everything from groceries to clothing, watch the TV, and refuse to go outside. I go outside and talk to my neighbor regularly, even though I think he's a bit nuts. Born-again Christian, but at least he walks the walk, and not just talking the talk. The neighbor on the other side? I've only seen her a handful of times, when she puts out the trash, or checks her mail. That's it. She doesn't go outside to do lawn maintenance - she hires a service. She doesn't do _anything_ outside at all. Other people in the neighborhood are the same - they stay inside all day.

There ARE no fast solutions! There are simple solutions, but the ones people keep trying to use are BAD. As can be seen by the shooting in Japan, you could confiscate every firearm in the country, and they can still be produced. Bans don't work.

I'll repeat this.

Bans don't work. Prohibition actually raised crime rates and alcoholism rates. The War On Drugs, enacted immediately after Prohibition ended to keep those bureaucrats and enforcement people in jobs, has done nothing but cause price supports for criminals in other countries. You could say that we (The US and Canada) created the drug cartels and kept them fed. It's been shown time and time again that bans don't work, so people always yell 'Have a harsher ban!'. Yeah. Right. Banning firearms in the UK worked very well for the battles between the IRA and the British government, didn't it?

Criminals don't care about the law. In fact, that mindset is REQUIRED for the position. Making more people criminals doesn't change anything.

Teach gun safety. Teach people what to do in emergencies (they've even stopped teaching 'what to do in a tornado' in school) For firearms, "Run away in all directions" is a good start. Teach people how to spot someone that they should talk to to try to find out if they need help. Teach people how to get help. Teach people how TO help. Stop blaming everyone else for troubles, and look at yourself and how you can help (or be helped) locally. Note that these can apply to all countries.

Education, not bans.

(Side note: Most of the people fighting in the Ukraine are not part of the military. They're regular residents and citizens that took up arms to defend themselves from the invasion. Think about that, please.)