Gun Control Reform Activism

If the intent and constitutional meaning of the Second Amendment is to deter the government form overreaching and to provide a means for popular rebellion in the event that the government goes too far, what use is a semi-automatic weapon against an armada of stealth bombers?

In order to be consistent and intellectually honest, conservatives like Shapiro should stop hiding behind what they know is popular sentiment – that gun control is not only constitutional but necessary – they should instead just own their views. Believing that the citizens have the right to counterbalance the physical power of their own government is to believe that soccer moms in Katy, oil barons in River Oaks, and truck drivers in Pearland are entitled to keep and bear Javelin anti-tank weapons and the launch codes to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

That’s the debate we should be having: On one side are people like the NRA, Ben Shapiro, and, whether he likes it or not, Alex Jones, arguing that the Second Amendment assures the right of the people to maintain an equality of arms with their government.

On the other side are people who believe that the Second Amendment’s provision that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is contingent on the requirement that it be in the context of a “well-regulated militia,” as the text actually provides. Those of us on in latter camp, who make up a substantial majority of Americans, will continue to insist that things like assault weapons and clips holding more than ten bullets have no place in the hands of anyone other than the military.

http://blog.chron.com/partisangridlock/2013/01/questions-for-second-amendment-absolutists/