I'll respond to all those comments in one line, Gary.. if it's worked so well, if it's trusting to let your citizens bear arms, if the American people are so responsible with their constitutionally empowered rights.. why are there so many f*ing gun deaths in the country? Explain to me why it's so brillaint to live in such fear that you need a weapon just to feel safe enough to survive your day-to-day existance. Explain to me why other countries should entrust such 'freedoms' to their people. Explain to me why a constitution made in wartime with the British; under specific circumstances, still applies now when the country is 'free'.
I'll respond to all those comments in one line, Alistair:
There are more gun deaths in our country because our country has more guns, just as very few drownings occur in a desert.You are under the assumption that the US is 1000x worse than the Wild West, with gun-toting maniacs on every corner. Not true.
I don't own a gun, nor do I desire to. From what I'm gathering, few countries, European or Asian, allow citizens to bear arms. In the US, there is a minority of people who use guns when committing crimes, and another group of citizens who are taking advantage of their constitutional right to bear arms. Everyone else simply lives their lives like other people do in other countries, without worrying one little bit about gun violence.
Look at it this way: Say a person from an uncivilized, horse-and-buggy society were to come to Australia today. Looking at the deaths caused by automobile accidents, they might be inclined to say, "You Australians should outlaw your cars in order to save lives, because they are death-traps! We have very few deaths attributed to automobile accidents [because we don't have cars], and you have so many deaths [because you do have cars]! Think of how many lives could be saved!" Kind of a disingenuous argument, huh?
It's a risk-benefit analysis -- hell, Life's a risk-benefit analysis every day: do I get out of bed or not?
As for removing the Second Amendment, it's easy. All you have to do is get 2/3 of Crongress (BOTH houses: 67 of 100 Senators and 291 of 435 Representatives) and 3/4 of all the states (38 of 50) to vote for it. Easy, huh?
It was actually the "Articles of Confederation" that were written during
wartime, not the Constitution. The AoC were written in 1777 at the start of the Revolutionary War after the colonists declared their independence, and it was ratified in 1781. The Revolutionary War ended in 1783. However, the AoC created a weak federal goverment, giving the states strong powers. Unfortunately, this led to many problems and much fighting between the states. So, in a "do-over" in 1787-1788, the AoC were dissolved and the Constitution was ratified during
peacetime; however, it was based on lessons learned in wartime.
The Bill of Rights is not a list of rights that the federal goverment allows the citizens to have, but rather it is a list of limitations that the federal goverment must abide by. It doesn't grant powers, it restricts them -- which is the beauty of the Founding Fathers' intent.
As far as the specific circumstances in which Amendment 2 was created, the consensus is that it's still in there so a free people can combat a tyranical government, if need be. Very unlikely in this day and age, but still, you never know...
If there is an amendment that seems a little odd 200 years hence, it's actually the 3rd Amendment: The goverment cannot house soldiers in private residences without the permission of the home-owner in times of peace or war.
Gary
