Yeah, I think that's insane.
Oh. That was the law until the 30s, and it wasn't much changed until May 19, 1986, when Reagan signed the bill into law that limited machine guns to only those manufactured before that date, and nothing's changed since then.
You don't have a right to keep a nuclear weapon
lain:
on your premises and you shouldn't have an automatic firearm.
The Second Amendment, according to the SCOTUS, disagrees with you.
There's no good reason to have it
Everybody's got one.
and more than a few reasons to deny it. When the founders put the right to bear arms into play no one had any idea this level of potential would exist.
You are an attorney unless I've missed my guess, and this is what you trot out to defend your position? Disappointing.
Your neighbor had a flintlock and if he went mad maybe someone might die before his neighbors killed him or wrestled him to the ground while he tried to reload.
Facile.
Of course, the reality is that between permits and expense, there's a near de facto ban on possession by the sort of people more prone to use it in a way that ends with someone dying or dead.
It is very difficult to obtain a machine gun right now, true.
It's thorny ground, but we could probably find at least a threshold both of us would stop and say, "Yeah, that guy can't have one."
That's what I meant, yes.
Other points then.
Registration
There are a lot of reasons why it makes sense and not a one against it that I've heard. It can make it easier to keep track of lost and stolen guns, among other things.
The problem is the threat of leftists getting into power and using registration to stage a campaign of confiscation, so I know you've heard at least one reason against.
If there is a legal way to ensure against this potential, then perhaps.
A safety course in handling firearms.
Great. Why? What's the rational objection to a safety course? To making people safer in the operation of the gun?
In fact I insist upon good safety practice for everybody who touches a gun, but it shouldn't be a law. I do however support the idea---that right now I don't know of anybody championing---to include mandatory firearms safety classes in all public school curriculum.
Reduced clip size.
Why? What's the argument?
In the case where we must use our weapons to defend our lives, this is a nonstarter. It is absolutely true that larger magazines enable more rounds fired per unit time, all other things being equal, and that's exactly what you need in a situation where you're fighting for your life and limb.
The means to change semi automatics into automatic weapons.
Supra.
The Second Amendment recognizes the right to keep and bear one-person machine guns; their effective ban right now is against the law.
As long as people treat the right unlike any other, the way you appear to, nothing will, literally.
I treat the right as a right, and as the SCOTUS has defined that right. It stems from the right to life.
What will change things, is if carrying rifles becomes common.
Rather, the laws I'm speaking to would have made that shooting less likely and over time can accomplish that. His purchases were legal. The thing you're fine with remaining legal was used to increase the killing power over short time stretches.
Which is the point, your silly introduction of nuclear weapons notwithstanding.
To suggest that we couldn't have stopped the shooting isn't an argument against trying to make that sort of thing appreciably less likely.
Carry rifles. Nobody with a handgun could have stopped the guy from down on the ground, but the toll would have been 10x smaller if someone with a rifle hit him between the eyes, which would have been easy with a rifle.
If you really want to lessen the chances, while recognizing and protecting the RKBA, ban tall structures.
Meanwhile, Congress, in the pocket of the gun lobby, by which I mean the corporate variety, continues to advocate in the interest of their bottom line, which isn't your right, but their bank balance.
Congress is who they are because 60% of Americans believe in the RKBA. Your continued accusation that it's about money is simply false.