All this talk dodges the issue. In the United States the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own firearms. If you want gun crime to never happen you need to to totally remove guns from private ownership, and the only way to do that is to repeal the Second Amendment.

All you anti-gun nuts should focus there and there alone. Nothing else is serious.

The Bill of rights should never be changed. Otherwise they can change anything.

Then shut up about guns. The only way to do the sort of things anti-gun people want is to get rid of the Second Amendment.

I am not advocating we take away guns. People in the US will always have illegal guns. The only way to get all guns away from the US is to search and seize every home for guns, which breaks another amendment. It's very stupid.

I don't advocate it either.

Sure people will always have illegal guns. But anti-gun advocates point to countries like Britain and say we should be like them. That means making private gun ownership illegal for virtually everyone. Here, that means repealing the Second Amendment. That's the only serious reform. It's a wonder these people don't advocate it.

Also, the searches and seizures would be fine if the police had a warrant, or other criteria applied.

Something tells me that would start a second civil war.

Not to mention there is zero chance that two thirds of Congress, not to mention three quarters of the states, will approve that.

It would start a mass civil war. But it wouldnt be just several states, probably over half the nation.

And it wouldn't be state vs. state per se. It would be individuals in the states. And there would be many states who would participate whole heartedly. But even in, say, California, there would be counties that did support the rights of the people, and those that supported the government.

That's all true. Which is why the anti-gun people should focus on making it actually *be* possible to repeal the amendment. None of this nonsense about registry and background checks. Gun crimes are overwhelmingly committed by people who ignore the laws and have illegal guns.

The campaign, if it were serious, would be to make private gun ownership illegal altogether. That would take years, but I think it'd be possible if these people got their acts together. Thank God they don't, because I fully support gun rights.

Not unless the Democrats start caring about winning state congresses. There is no way the GOP led states will let that through.

Nor should they.

But this would be a civil society movement. Rather than news articles willfully mixing up semi-automatic weapons and continuing to use the meaningless phrase "assault weapon" we'd see editorials that we just should scrap the amendment entirely. That's how it would start. It would be a long project, but if these people *really* cared and believed in the things they say they do this is where their focus would be.

Except that the amendment provides more than just the right to bear arms. An amendment to the constitution that would make private ownership of guns illegal would have to be a little more descriptive than just repealing the Second Amendment.

I don't think that's right, but fine. Frame it that way. My point is that anti-gun nuts should focus on changing the Constitution rather than these silly regulation points. Or they would if they were actually serious about getting anything done.

What about the people like me that are fine with some guns but not all guns? Regulations are the only way to get what we want, and it's far more constitutional because people still have the right to own arms (though technically knives are arms too, so anti-gun nuts might be able to use that to argue constitutionality), specifically guns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words-that-can-fix-the-second-amendment/2014/04/11/f8a19578-b8fa-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html

"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Definition of infringe (Oxford Dictionary):
1 Actively break the terms of (a law, agreement, etc.)

1.1 Act so as to limit or undermine (something); encroach on:

By the definition, saying that certain guns are not legal, (ie limiting) IS infringing and therefore unconstitutional.

And Jeff, that is a fantastic way for the government to take away all your guns. If they are only legal for those in a militia, which is now the National Guard, they can easily dissolve it and take away all of our guns.

The whole "dictionary definition proves me right" argument might fly...
If you want to throw out 225 years of legal precedent.

Oh sure, the Supreme Court has said yes to certain restrictions. My point is that I don't agree with the Supreme Court. Last time I checked, that was allowed in the good ol' US of A.

A tank, heavy explosives, and siege weapons are technically also arms.

I would not define any of those as arms.

And yeah, there are some gaping holes in it, which is why the Courts are there. But if you read it literally, that is what it says.

Definition of arms (Oxford Dictionary):
1. Weapons and ammunition; armaments
Would you not say any of those are weapons at all?

A tank is not a weapon, a tank HAS a weapon. If I put a 50 cal on my car, it does not turn my car into a weapon. Explosives are ordinance. Siege weapons are a large group of things, that may or may not be a weapon. A catapult or trebuchet is a weapon, a siege tower is no more a weapon than a cherry-picker truck.

I think the common understanding of "arms" in the Second Amendment context is "small arms" which can be carried and used with your...arms.

And yeah, I would agree with Jeff on that. Thought I defend my right to build trebuchets in my back yard!

Except that the word arms comes from a word that means any variation of weapon. Including siege weapons. Defining it as "small arms" is automatically a restriction. And literally everything I listed serves the purpose of a weapon.

Comes from a word, but is not that word. Sincere comes from a word about wax, but does not mean wax.

Sure except no. The limb arm comes from a different word that the weapon arm came from, and the word sincere comes from a word for pure.