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2nd Amendment Misinterpretation

Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 1 month ago to Politics
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We often hear gun control fans that the 2nd amendment was only intended to allow single shot weapons, since repeating arms did not exist at that time. Gulchers who would like to prove them wrong should point them to references to the Kalthoff repeating flintlock (with up to 30 rounds) and the Lorenzoni repeating flintlock (typically with 8 rounds), both dating from the late 1600s, far in advance of our nation's founding. These muskets could be fired with only seconds between shots, unlike such oddities like the Puckle gun. I invite other Gulchers to bring up for discussion the other restraints claimed for weapon ownership, with arguments for your particular view.


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  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    When we give central government the power to take our liberty by force it's a reason for action.
    Take away the funding from all liberty's enemies. Consumer Strike on all non-essential products.
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  • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Joseph Belton, a Philadelphia gunsmith, proposed a semiautomatic flintlock design using superposed loads to George Washington, claiming his design offered a firing rate of five charges in eight seconds. He wanted too much for the Continental Congress to afford, and there was no intelligence that indicated the redcoats were making any effort to move beyond the Brown Bess, so the delivery didn't happen. Belton also experimented with a chain fire version that demonstrated a firing rate of 20 rounds in three seconds, with single trigger pull. Technically, you could say that an American rifleman could have had a fully automatic weapon during this period. However, as one rifleman from Virginia noted, the continuous recoil and the tremendous volume of black powder smoke would have made aiming the gun nearly impossible, so Belton had no takers for that design either.
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  • Posted by 7 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Here's a quote from Piers Morgan: “The Second Amendment was devised with muskets in mind, not high-powered handguns and assault rifles. Fact.” Of course Morgan is a British citizen, so that might color his thinking. Another from Mark Hamill: “Don’t get me wrong, as a strong supporter of the 2nd Ammendment [sic]—I believe in every American’s right to own a musket.” Luke Skywalker is of course another Hollywood "expert." More disconcerting is this quote from Rep Connie Watson Coleman, (D) North Carolina: “This is something as a non-lawyer that I have had trouble with from the very beginning. When the framers of our Constitution considered the Second Amendment, they were talking about muskets.” When people who can make laws think this way, it's a reason for concern.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 1 month ago
    Citing those old weapons accepts the premise that the 2nd Amendment only applies to weapons similar to what existed around the time it was ratified. Accepting this premise, it would be logical to compare other features of guns of the time in terms of accuracy, max practical firing rate, and time required to reload, and to the 2nd Amendment does not apply to anything that exceeds those parameters.

    I wonder what improvements, if any, the people of that time saw in guns during their lifetime. If they saw improvements in technology but failed to mention future improvements in the 2nd Amendment, that's evidence they intended it to apply to some higher-tech forms of weapons.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 1 month ago
    I never heard anyone say (never read it in print) that the Second Amendment applies to single-shot weapons. Do you have a citation? (I mean a credible citation, not just some comment in a social media discussion.)
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  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Unless they are shooting enemies of the state, e.g., conservatives. Then they can have nuclear weapons, if desired.
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  • Posted by Solver 7 years, 1 month ago
    Ok, I changed it.

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall ... be infringed. if they can shoot more than once.
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