In light of the Florida shooting, I know there has been a lot of talk about guns, as there typically is. Everyone here know the general framework of the traditional gun debate in our society. I believe that I have sort of a 3rd point of view, and I feel it is quite a bit more legitimate than the "standard" two sides. I am looking for thoughts from both/any/all sides.
Beginning with the text:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
In this language we can see the Framers were concerned with gun ownership, and well regulated militias, because it/they were mechanism to insure, as much as is possible, a "free state."
This leads to my first question...can we fairly interpret this to mean than any citizen can own any gun for any reason at any time? I personally feel the answer is no, but the text is fairly vague. Certainly, a state could have, and do have, armies, mostly the National Guard. It seems like the text lies somewhere between that and somewhere short of total deregulation.
This leads to me second question for those who are, and I'm oversimplifying, NRA types. I'll preface this question with a quick story. I went to a speech by a Holocaust survivor, if I remember right he was from Poland. Poland had private gun ownership and a centralized list of owners. The government gave the list to the Nazis and they went house to house and took the guns.
So, if you are a "traditional" NRA type, and strongly support the 2nd Amendment, which has a purpose of ensuring a free state through well-regulated militias and arms ownership, shouldn't and equal component of your agenda be to organize gun owners so that they would stand a chance against an invading federal army or other threat. What I mean to say, is that 1 million guns are probably nearly useless against an organized army, so only being concerned with the ownership is not really being true to the spirit of the 2nd Amendment. Arguably, another branch of concern for a 2nd Amendment enthusiast would be to ensure states have sufficient armies, "well regulated militias"
Finally, in the context of the Holocaust survivor and the gun list, it seems to me that almost everyone should support a system of checks/regulations, whatever form that takes, that receives dummy checks. In doing so, we see that everyone who buys a gun went through the check but not everyone on the list actually owns a gun. This would address the concerns of most "gun control" people and alleviate the Nazi/Poland situation.
So, I am kind of calling out to the NRA types, and I know that is a generalization, if you are so concerned about the 2nd Amendment, where are the calls for larger state militias and organized private owners? Maybe they are there and I don't hear or see them. However, when there are calls against gun regulations after kids are killed, and that seems quite cold on the surface, it would provide good balance to promote the arguably larger component of the 2nd Amendment, the "well regulated militia." With out that component, the 2nd Amendment rationale deteriorates and the argument just becomes that you really want your gun so you should be able to keep it.
To the "anti-gun" people, why don't you support policies that reduce the threats guns pose, while still respecting the 2nd Amendment, such as the dummy background checks, and stronger state armies. These state armies would be a great opportunity to provide gun ownership training, and mental health/background info. You could say, "Do three months of training at your state army after high school, the state gets its well regulated militia, the participant gets high level gun training and this period gives the state a great chance to observe their maturity and fitness for gun ownership. If you graduate....own a million guns."
Sorry for the length, throw your feedback my way and thanks for reading.