- That's how the left would like the amendment to read anyway...

Today I'm going to try and make an appeal to those who sit near the center, and maybe just a bit to the right, when it comes to gun control. I'm going to try and make the case that the government should place no restrictions whatsoever (And I mean it when I say NO restrictions - no background checks, magazine limits, weapon model type limits, licenses, etc. etc.) on the right to keep and bear arms. ...That's a pretty extreme opinion, and right away you're probably thinking I'm nuts for considering it. I know how you feel. I used to be just like you. It wasn't until after I became caught up in the topic of gun control, and after I spent hundreds of hours independently researching the topic, that I considered the opinion which I now hold, which is: None of the regulations ever tried or introduced work to reduce crime. They never have, they don't now, and they never will. We can get rid of the bad precedent that these regulations set, without any of the supposed bad consequences that proponents of said regulations say we'd have.

Before you read on, I highly suggest you go back and read my first piece on this blog entitled "The Second Amendment: Rights Vs. Privileges," for more context to my reasoning behind this subject. If you don't want to go back and read that piece, then fine: read on. You'll still get a lot out of this article. However, if you're interested in digging deeper into my reasoning behind this, then you'll find my above-mentioned blog post to be interesting. In short, the point of that piece was this: Once you give the government the right to decide what arms the American people can and can't have, you have degraded the right into a privilege. You have then opened the door for the government to place any limit they please on that right as long as they can make even a somewhat loose argument that their proposed regulation(s) is "reasonable." In short, it's a slippery slope. ...Now, that's all the TL;DR you're getting for that post, so please, go read it if you're still interested! Let's get into this...

As soon as I said that the government should place no restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, I guarantee that your mind was instantly filled with images of RPGs, grenades, mounted machine guns, landmines, tanks, jets, drones, and other obviously "unreasonable" arms that the American people shouldn't be allowed to have. You may have even thought of the infamous "You really think owning nukes should be legal?" hyperbole. You may think that the "slippery slope, degrading rights to privileges" argument makes at least a bit of sense, but at the cost of criminals being able to blow up schools with drone strikes? That's ridiculous, right? ...Well, not quite. Because even if we made these weapons legal, the vast majority of criminals would still have no way to obtain these. And the ones that would be able to obtain them already have the means to do so right now as I write this.

Criminals are poor. Machine guns, explosives, and yes, believe it or not - nuclear weapons, are extremely expensive. We're talking thousands of dollars for machine guns and grenade launchers, and tens of thousands to millions for the other ridiculous examples given such as tanks and drones. There's a reason most criminals use cheap handguns. Most of them can't afford anything better - and, more important than that point - they have zero use for such weapons as machine guns and explosives. Believe it or not, blowing somebody up is a poor way to rob them. You tend to get in more trouble that way, and it's completely unnecessary and inefficient. Criminals think it's easier to "stick em' up" than to "blow em' up"

The vast majority of criminals are perfectly capable with simply using a cheap handgun. It's all they need, and it's usually what they use. According to the FBI, in 2014: 90% of murders committed with firearms (excluding close to 2,000 murders where the firearm used was not stated and thus unknown in the report) were committed with handguns. If criminals wanted the biggest, baddest guns on the market, wouldn't they at least use rifles or something? Nope. In 2014, over twice as many people were killed with "personal weapons - hands, fists, feet, etc." than with rifles. And, while less scientific, but interesting nonetheless, admittedly small scale surveys and studies done on guns collected from criminals usually also find that criminals tend to use cheap, low quality guns. There are almost zero expensive "assault weapons" (Oh, how I hate that term) or fancy semi-auto shotguns found. Just cheap revolvers and semi auto handguns. Criminals seem to prefer to steal grandpa's old police service revolver than to go to Gander Mountain and buy a Barett REC7.

So, now that it's safe to say that 99% of criminals wouldn't be able to afford explosives and machine guns if they were legal, that they have no use for them even if they could afford them, and that they would thus not be a threat if these highly lethal weapons were to be unleashed into the market, what about the 1%? We can split this leftover group into two groups: Career criminals, and terrorists. These two groups are on the far extreme side of the criminal spectrum. They are the people who, if explosives, machine guns, and all the rest of such "highly dangerous weapons" were to be released into the market, would be able to afford, and have the ability to use them.

But guess what? These two groups of people already have access to explosives, machine guns, and all the rest. These are the type of people who are the black market's primary shoppers. They have full access to machine guns, grenades, grenade launchers, and all the rest. Trying to regulate what these types of criminals can and can't buy is like trying to contain a bull in a perimeter surrounded only by "do not enter" tape. They don't care, and it's laughable when politicians try to contain them with more laws. By definition, a career criminal makes a living by breaking the law. If they want explosives, you better believe they'll get them. And they do, because they're the professionals. but, what's interesting is that even these criminals rarely use explosives and machine guns to cause havoc on peaceful citizens!

Just about every single regulation on the buying, selling, and ownership of arms in this country is based off of fear mongering, misinformation, and misconceptions about what's being banned or regulated. Machine guns? Besides the above mentioned points, machine guns are incredibly hard to control, especially if you're not a trained soldier who's got hours of practice (and thousands of dollars to spend on ammo) behind the trigger. ...And that's while standing still, facing in one single direction, while the shooter focuses on bracing himself against his bucking weapon. Not even the standard infantry rifle used by our military (M16A2 and A4) uses full auto. The Hollywood myth of spraying down crowds of people is, well, just that: A myth. Full auto on small arms is almost entirely for suppression - sending large amounts of rounds down-range, without need for accuracy, to keep the enemies' heads down - not killing power.

...And on that same point, I'd also like to mention the fact that, for about $100 and 10 minutes of installation, you can already transform your semi auto rifle full into a full auto rifle in a completely legal way. "Bump (AKA "slide") fire stocks" are the full auto loophole equivalent to how spring assisted knives are the loophole through laws that prohibit switchblades. - they do the exact same thing, just in different ways. You never hear about people using this relatively cheap loophole to commit mass shootings, however, because of all the other reasons I mentioned. Now, you could at least start to make the argument that the majority of those with ill-intention haven't heard of this easy modification. Fair point. However, it would seem that if full auto weapons were really such monstrous, mass-killing nightmares, that somebody would at least spend 30 seconds on google, searching something like "full auto AR-15" or "How to make an AR-15 full auto," which is all it takes to discover this simple product.

I could go on and on about arbitrary regulations that don't do anything. Silencers? Don't those make you a super ninja agent who silently assassinates people without anyone in the vicinity noticing? Actually, all they do is reduce the average gunshot volume by about 30 decibels (150-160db is about average). So, if you ever have to defend yourself or your loved ones, putting a silencer on the end of your muzzle will make sure your ear drums don't pop by the time it's over. For reference, if we go with the more conservative 150db for a gunshot, a suppressor would knock that down to about 120db. That's about as loud as a chainsaw. Did you think Scar-face was sneaky when he killed people? Didn't think so.

So, in closing, please consider the fact that by supporting any regulation the right to keep and bear arms, you are supporting the idea that the government can and should be trusted to decide what's best when it comes to regulations and limits on your second amendment right. This degrades our right into a privilege, which not only erodes the second amendment, but helps to do so to other rights as well. Don't think this bad precedent only applies to guns. Once you decide the government can make "reasonable" exceptions to the second amendment, how will you guarantee they won't do the same for other amendments? The second amendment says, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," Don't try and add unreasonably before infringed. Any infringement is unreasonable. Period.

And, if one day, a miracle happens and we undo all these unconstitutional laws that restrict our right our right to keep and bear arms, you'll wake up the next day, and nothing will change in the way of crime. Gang members won't be setting up landmines in your neighborhoods, you won't step on a claymore on your way to work, school buses won't be gunned down with SAWS (Squad Automatic Weapons) and you won't be blown up by a predator drone that some kid, who sells weed, bought from Cabela's. Criminals will stick with cheap handguns like they always have. The more... economically stable folks, will have fun playing with machine guns, while the poor criminals stick with what they've always used. People won't damage their hearing with guns as often thanks to silencers, people will be able to shorten their rifle barrels (Currently you need to jump through hoops to get a barrel shorter than the arbitrarily decided length of 16 inches) for easier use in-doors in case the need arises, And best of all, we get rid of a dangerous precedent!

...Until next time!