Court says individuals have right to own guns

[texas*princess]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

That's simply not a viable argument.

The citizens must be armed to defend itself against the government. That means if a citizen has the means to do it, they should be able to purchase what ever gun the government owns.

I don't think citizens need to have weapons to defend themselves from the government.

Unless you are doing some crazy shizz, the American government is not going to wake up one day and storm your home and try to harm you or your family because they are bored.

People should have to right to have weapons to defend themselves from dumbasses who also have weapons and are trying to harm them (e.g. people breaking into homes for various reasons).

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

I don't think citizens need to have weapons to defend themselves from the government.

Unless you are doing some crazy shizz, the American government is not going to wake up one day and storm your home and try to harm you or your family because they are bored.

People should have to right to have weapons to defend themselves from dumbasses who also have weapons and are trying to harm them (e.g. people breaking into homes for various reasons).

I could be wrong, but I think his point was about the founders' attitude about why the people needed the right. If you relatively recently had to band together to throw off the British and remain concerned about individual liberty and the role of limited federal government, you might feel different about protecting yourself from the government.

I tend to think only nuts really imagine having to defend themselves with weapons against the government today, but I think our right to have weapons for other reasons grew out of concern about limiting the powers of government by granting explicit rights to the people, even in cases where the reasons why they granted those rights militia's, fears about gov't power, don't seem to apply, etc. The right is still there.

ETA: If you look at some no knock raid stories it may give you something to consider in terms of government storming people's homes. Personally, I'm not going to try to shoot any police who try to enter my home; I'd go with a lawsuit later. But there are are lot of cases in the news in the last few years about agents of the government storming peoples homes for no good reason.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...5AC0A9659C8B63
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/10374909/detail.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-knock_warrant