Sazar said:
read the date of the ammendment... also note the social climate of the time...
given that fact plus the fact we have more gun related homocide's/accidents/deaths than any other 1st world country I can think of, its beyond high time for a proper adjustment to be made to the laws...
there is not enough gun control legislation, making it easy as pie for those seeking weapons to acquire them...
there is nothing wrong with levying taxes on guns and ammunition in order to pay for legislative actions such as improving locking mechanisms on weapons and the requirements for getting a license in order to acquire/use a weapon...
heck we have license/registration waits for cars.. and we have taxation on cigarettes... why not guns?
gun's don't kill people, people kill people... true... but people with guns are generally the ones comitting the crimes...
The date on the amendment is unimportant. If you use that logic, it negates the entire Bill of Rights as being merely a product of it's time. I don't have a problem with limited licensing...it can sometimes be too easy for a criminal to get ahold of a gun by legal means (he'll get it illegally if he really wants it anyhow). BUT, here's some statistics for you:
* There are 129 million privately owned firearms in the United States according to the September, 1997 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
* There are an estimated 65 million handguns in private circulation in the United States. (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 9/1997)
* The fastest growing group of gun owners is women, according to Gary Kleck in Targeting Guns.
* Firearms are used defensively roughly 2.5 million times per year, more than four times as many as criminal uses. This amounts to 2,575 lives protected for every life lost to a gun (Targeting Guns).
* The accidental firearm death rate is at it's lowest point since records were started nearly 100 years ago according to Injury Facts 2000 from the national Safety Council.
* Motor-vehicle accidents, drowning, suffocation, and fires each kill more children under the age of fifteen than do firearms.
* Less than one handgun in 6,500 is ever used in a homicide.