Originally Posted By: Kaotic
Second, I believe that you misunderstand the reason for the 2nd amendment. Or we just fundamentally disagree about it.


Lets take this argument to absurd extreme. Why shouldn't you, a private citizen, be allowed to own a briefcase nuke?

Quote:
I believe that the 2nd amendment was written to ensure that the populace has the ability to defend itself against an out of control or oppressive government.


I guess we disagree. I believe it ends at "defend itself" part. After all, how can single individual defend himself/herself against entire government that has tanks, planes, carriers with just a rifle?

Potential civil war is not going to go any differently if population has access to only handguns (and much safer society sans revolution because of that) or automatic rifles and machine guns. Just like in the case of The Civil War, people will divide into camps, implements of war will be manufactured or brought out of military stockpiles and used in a field of battle.

If anything, independence of military and its disengagement from political process is what keeps us from "oppressive government" and not an ability to own automatic machine guns.

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