Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?

[mayosligo]

I did not want to start a new thread because I think this applies here. An anti gun advocate was challenging several pro gun people to cite a specific instance where a person using a semi auto rifle like an AR to defend themselves against a mob. Living in Louisiana I cited business owners and homeowners after Katrina. Their response is that you cannot find a citation of a AR being used. Now I was in New Orleans, actually helped remove items from a French quarter shop for a friend of mine. I saw people armed with all number of firearms including ARs but if course no media did any stories on this because they were not there in the beginning. I cannot cite any of them actually shooting on the mob. Also, not like anyone in the media would do a positive story about a civ defending themselves with an AR but in most cases BGs disperse when they see the first sign of firepower. Any thoughts on this argument. I think it is mostly along the lines of prove to me you have stopped beating your wife, but interested in some of your thoughts.

[SPEMack618]

There is a picture floating around, GoogleImage would be a good start, of a Korea shopowner, or possibly friend, brother, husband, whatever of a shopower standing atop a store during the Rodney King riots packing a Mini-14.

Not an AR-15, but still a magazine fed semi-automatic .223 caliber carbine.

AHA! Found it.

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/...ran-story.html

A Mini-14, a Mossberg riot gun, and some sort of black rifle.

The argument for a high capacity magazine becomes a lot clearer when you look at a mob of miscreants instead of one guy with pantyhose on his head.

[dalegribble]

i believe the founding fathers meant to include the most up to date firearms of the time in the second amendment, and that includes our time as well. the founding fathers knew that weapons evolve, they saw it in their lifetimes. why would people of today that revere the founding fathers for their foresight in their writings believe that there would be no advances in weaponry and the second amendment would not include modern arms as well? should the 2nd amendment include future weapons like lasers, partical beams, even marvin the martins ray gun? i say yes. it is not the type or style of weapon the second amendment refers to, it is the absolute right of people to be able to own these weapons.

[PT-92]

Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?

Did they have the "modern" firearms of their time in mind when they originally wrote it?

Yes.

[jimbob86]

Are you folks only worried about the federal government or all the others as well?

I have a whole lot more influence on State and Local government than I do on the Federal Government.

It is much easier to keep tabs on them (State and Local). The Feds have no effective limit on resources (when they run out of money, they just borrow more- many States do this as well, but not mine!), which is definitely not so of my State and Local governments.

IME, the State of Nebraska and my County and Village governments are much less intrusive than the Feds...... so no, I think I'll worry more about the 800 lb gorilla (with a record of hurting people) in the room than I will about the well behaved Lab or the snoozing chihuahua.

[PT-92]

Are you folks only worried about the federal government or all the others as well?

I live in a Red Pro 2A State (nothing to be taken for granted by the way as we have worked feverishly to get CCW/Castle Doctrine Laws including taking the case all the way to the State Supreme Court after over-riding a Governor's veto) and feel quite comfortable within.

But, in particular, and given the current POTUS I fear the Federal Government much more than the State/Local/Municipalities. The thought of "unleashing" the ATF is enough to keep LAWFUL gun owners both awake at night as well as actively involved with Pro 2A Groups that seek to uphold and protect our God-Given Constitutional rights.

[doofus47]

OP

Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?

yep, the most current available at that time means the most current available for any.

[Mannlicher]

I am sure that someone has said by now, that the Founding Fathers were not really concerned with what type of gun, as much as they were with the reasons Citizens should have the right to be armed.
No use confusing the issue at this late stage.

[jason_iowa]

Civilians generally were better armed then the military until the World War erra. So yes I think they had the idea that civilians would be equal to or better armed then the government.

[johnbt]

"Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?"

As much as they did telegraph, telephone, texting, television and the www when they wrote the 1st Amendment.

[egor20]

johnbt

As much as they did telegraph, telephone, texting, television and the www when they wrote the 1st Amendment.

Just inform them that you'll revert to a musket, when they revert back to a quill and printing press.

[rickyrick]

I don't think they wrote the constitution with an expiration date, of course they had the future in mind.

[therealdeal]

yes I do

[TwentyToo]

Yes. Whatever would be needed to defeat tyranny.

[BlueTrain]

I agree with Mr. Mannlicher but not with Mr. Jason_Iowa. I rather doubt that civilians have ever been better armed than the military. While civilians may have had rifles when the military had smoothbores, the smoothbore musket was a better military weapon. The rifle (at the time) was for specialists. Later, civilians had repeating rifles when the military was still using single-shots. Partly for economic reasons but also the typical repeating rifle was only using a relatively low power cartridge that the military thought was inadequate.

[NickySantoro]

Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?

What they had in mind was ensuring that the government and its minions didn't have sole access to the means of coercive force.

[MLeake]

BlueTrain, until recent decades, military procurement often ran slowly, either due to limited funds, or traditionalist generals. Look at how, even when the Krag was adopted, the Army tried to force it into single shot mode.

Were civilians as a whole better armed? Not necessarily. Could individual civilians have legally been better armed, for most of US history? Yes.

[BlueTrain]

Well, the question centers around what someone thinks is better, always an interesting topic for discussion. At the time the Krag, along with the Lee-Enfield, the thinking was that the rounds in the magazine were for emergency use. It usually takes a war for the some militaries to change their mind.

[jimbob86]

the smoothbore musket was a better military weapon

...for set-piece battles, when the enemy plays by your rules and uses your tactics, when a bayonet is the principal killing tool.

When the enemy refuses to meet you on your terms, and instead shoots at your road building crews and baggage trains from the woods .....when the enemy refuses to stand in neat compact rows in the open, and shoots your Officers, NCO's, artillerymen, color guards, and "musick" from cover beyond your effective range ..... that's not "better".... ask General Simon Fraser's ghost about the inferiority of well aimed rifle fire ......

[MLeake]

The British found it very ungentlemanly that our marksmen deliberately aimed at their officers and NCOs first. That sort of thing just was not done...

[jimbob86]

The British found it very ungentlemanly that our marksmen deliberately aimed at their officers and NCOs first. That sort of thing just was not done...

....yet held that cutting down fleeing unarmed men by cavalry was good sport .....

Strange people, the Britts .....

[MLeake]

What, you say there was hypocrisy in the "haves" wanting the "have nots" to play by a set of rules that favored the safety of the "haves?"

I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

It is wonderful that this does not happen today. Why, Mayor Bloomberg even rides the subway to work! (Of course, according to Bernard Kerik's book, the Mayor has an escort of NYPD homicide detectives...)

[Cowboy_mo]

Do you think our forefathers had current guns in mind when writing the 2nd Amendment?

I think that they had just overthrown an oppressive government and were well aware that it could NOT have been done by unarmed citizens. I think they also knew that the definition of "well armed" would evolve and that citizens should be allowed to keep pace with that evolution.

If you think about it, firearms evolved tremendously from the writing of the 2nd amendment through the end of the civil war. Yet, I know of no mention or proposal of "gun control - disarming the citizens" following the civil war.

[jimbob86]

The folks fighting the Brittish regulars and Hessians had pretty much the same proposition: How the hell do I fight a wall of trained soldiers who are experts in hand to hand combat (bayonets) and capable of unleashing an unsurvivable hail of .69" death ..... all I have is this .40 caliber hunting rifle that can't even take a bayonet!?!?!?! The answer was you don't fight them on their terms, unless you had serious superiority of numbers and equal equipment.

The American Revoloution, like most every successful asymetrical warfare conflict in history, was largely not won by winning major battles: it was won by refusing to lose, and continually hitting the enemy until he got tired of fighting (and paying to fight you) .....

Even the major victories were not really strictly won on the battlefield-the Battles at Saratoga (Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights) were the culmination of a months' long campaign in which Brittish Forces throughout New York, New Hampshire and Vermont were continually impeded, harrassed and attacked at every turn ...... Burgoyne's force spent the better part of a month crossing a 20 mile wilderness south of Skenesboro ...... he lost thousands of men killed and captured in small actions scattered across the region while the American's forces continually got larger ..... the same thing played out in the south, years later.....

[SPEMack618]

how do I go into a warzone and defend myself with a bolt action rifle

Ask the Mujahadeen. Ask the Germans, Italians, and Japanese who faced off against the U.S. during WWII.

They held thier own pretty well against a force with semi-auto rifles.

Hell, ask the old Taliban guy we caught with an Egyptian marked Enfield .303 who only gave it up because he wanted to get medical aid for whom I assume to be his son, who was carrying an AK variant of some sort.