Assault Weapons Ban

An anonymous reader writes "With all the Constitutional arguments that appear on /., perhaps some readers might be interested in this BBC Article about the expiration of the Clinton assault weapons ban. Both presidential candidates have spoken in favor of it, but no one is willing to vote to keep it."

Comments

Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!

[0x0d0a]

SOrry, its not an either or thing. If you think weapons should be freely ownable, I should be able to own a nuclear bomb. The constitution doesn't forbid it, after all.

That's absurd. The Constitution was written in a time when nuclear bombs didn't *exist*. The game thory associated with the weapons of the times -- soldiers have rifles, citizens have rifles -- made guns a moderating influence. The game factors associated with nuclear bombs is *wildly* different from that associated with guns.

This is exactly the sort of thing reason that the judicial branch is allowed to interpret the Constitution -- to deal with technological advances.

For example, if the military gets the ability to run around with autonomous sniping helicopters and that becomes the main method of exerting military force, then civilians need to be able to have Stingers. That maintains the same balance as was present in the Constitution's authoring period.

Personally, I think civilians owning guns is not permitted by the constitution, and that militia means a state army. But I do think this is an area where compromises can be reached.

It's not a matter of compromise -- it can be *amended* if it's necessary to mean this. Please at least read and consider this -- the framers very clearly referred to an armed citizenry.