re: #12 Great White Snark

A couple decisions clearly limit the 2nd to bearable arms, IOW tanks need not apply. Nor tank guns. Nor nukes. Crew served lasers, all off the table for the 2nd. Has been legally clear since maybe Bonnie And Clyde.

I know you mean well here, but I really think you read into the jurisprudence and cultural/political activity around the 2nd exactly what you want it to be. (Remember Heller was a 5-4 decision, 217 years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights. It was not obvious, and much after Bonnie and Clyde, please.) And anyway your particular “bear arms” wordplay is not relevant - it’s the “common use” aspect of the weapon that Scalia defended, which leads to the illogical and discriminatory situation where clubs and knives are more illegal in some states than handguns, as nobody speaks up for the clubs and knives.

I live in Texas and work in a public university, where we were just forced to accept concealed carry of handguns on campus. Remember concealed carry of any kind in TX wasn’t allowed until 1995! What we see across the country is a sustained campaign to eliminate all kinds of restrictions on firearms whatever - the fact that Scalia said “oh, of course there are limits” is not the slightest bit reassuring because 2nd amendment absolutists are trying to test this in as many ways as possible. If you think there is some process that will approach a “reasonable” solution across the country, may I suggest it would have been the status quo before the 90s, when the NRA went insane?

Do I think people should be able to have guns at home? Sure, if they’re held responsible for what happens. (Shooting lost exchange students outside one’s house is not OK, regardless of how weak one’s piddly xenophobic bladder is.) Do people in dangerous professions need personal protection? Certainly I can see cause. But this is not where the frontier of “gun rights” is many places in the US - rather, it’s “surely I have the right to be a vigilante and chase after someone I don’t like in a location that’s not my house and shoot them dead, and also to have a gun range in my backyard and not be responsible if the backstop doesn’t prevent bullets from hitting my neighbor’s house” - and these people have no interest in your formulation of this issue.