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Contrary to what many seem to believe, the Founders didn't really have hunting in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment. What they were thinking was something along the lines of, "Gosh, this is a great dream we wrote down here, but it's just a piece of paper. How are we going to make future governments of this nation give a rat's ass about it?" Thus the right to keep and bear arms to keep the government in check. Hopefully this never becomes necessary, but they did specifically want citizens to be allowed the means to overthrow the government should it become tyrannical like the one they dedicated their lives to getting us away from. Peace and good will is all well and good, but sometimes you have to have the muscle to back it up. That being said, I think that gun control should be minimal... minimal meaning that I'd allow assault rifles, but probably not rocket launchers... and I do support reasonable background checks. First, there are no different degrees of death... dead is dead, whether it be from an AR-15 (the civilian name for the M-16, and at .223 is smaller caliber than most deer rifles) or from a kitchen knife. Two, many, if not most people who do illegal things with guns obtain them illegally. They also go for the cheapest, crappiest guns they can find. This is basically what a "Saturday Night Special" is. Typically a little .22 revolver... not particularly powerful, not particularly accurate, not particularly reliable. People who are serious about guns are typically law-abiding, though perhaps rather eccentric about it, and they like the good ones... semi-automatics, assault rifles, .44 magnums, etc. They also are the ones who will whip their guns out and drop anyone who starts shooting up a place. One example of this happened a couple years ago here in Albuquerque. Some woman's ex came into the store she worked at, hopped over the deli counter, and started stabbing her. Fortunately for her, there was an elderly gentleman nearby who was among the first to get a concealed carry permit under the new law allowing concealed weapons with a permit. He immediately killed the assailant, and the woman, though having been stabbed three times, went to the hospital and survived. Another such story may best be described as a "Darwin Award"... a would be robber went into a gun store one morning. To do this, he also had to walk around a police car parked in front of the door. He burst in, waved his little Saturday Night Special around, and the clerks, cop, and customers who were standing around engaged in friendly conversation with their cups of coffee responded predictably. If you want to learn about many of the myths surrounding different kinds of guns, I strongly suggest looking at the NRA website. Whatever else they may be, they know their firearms... and are more than willing to discuss safety and responsible use of firearms with anyone who will listen, and oft-times many who don't.
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