A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Now let me preface this entire rant by saying that I do in fact understand why we have this right, I just think it is out dated and has no place in the US Constitution. The 2nd Amendment was put in place as a sort of security measure. Having the right to bear arms meant that if your government became tyrannical, you had the tools to overthrow it. It also meant that if you wanted to build a personal army just in case, well then there was no problem. During 1791 when this was created, America had just escaped the British, and having the ability to overthrow a government was pretty important to everyone.
Fast forward 219 years, and well this amendment is riddled with problems. The first thought that comes into my head is this: There are now so many restrictions on guns, that the average person can no longer beat out a military man in terms of fire power. That fire power could be a bigger gun, a tank, a nuclear heat-seeking missile, the options are nearly endless, and quite frankly your gun ain't gunna save you from any of it.
So since the thought of overthrowing said government is ridiculous, what exactly can guns do?
1: Personal Protection. Now I do know the stats on this, 2 million people protect themselves with a gun every single year. That is five times more than they are used for committing crime, and much more than any other bad stat. So I'll give up on hand guns, if a family wants to keep one hand gun in there house, let them. If they do opt to have a gun though, the gun has to be registered, and they have to go through a full screening to get it (This includes waiting three days or whatever the wait is now). Said gun also has to be out of reach of children. What a house does not need is things such as: shotguns, machine guns, etc.
2. Crime. Yes earlier I did say guns were used more frequently for protection than crime, but 2,000,000 divided by 5 is still 400,000 crimes a year, a number that is not only growing, but unacceptable. Stricter control of guns, and harsher punishments for any gun based offence would solve this well enough for me to give up the point though.
Obviously the gun has more uses such as hunting, but these are the big two for me. Right now my gun toting friends are yelling "HOW CAN I HUNT," and the answer is surprisingly simple.
Gun Storage. The basic concept is easy to grasp, and while I'm obviously going to let a few things fall through the cracks, the point is solid. Any non-handgun weapon will be confiscated by the county or state, and be indefinitely held in gun storage.. Now these guns will still belong to you in name, but they will be modified just a little, and the rules to get them will be very strict.
If you plan on going hunting any time soon, you will fill out a little paperwork, namely where you are hunting, and what gun you plan to hunt with. The gun clerk will check your hunting ID, and compare it to your gun id, and when the time is right (and nothing bad happens to your paper work), he will give you your hunting weapons. These weapons will have a tracker on them though, and if you enter a residential area BOOM the alarm goes off, and you are swarmed by police. If you tamper with the tracker BOOM there goes the alarm, etc etc ad nasuem.
Now do not for a second think that breaking into my gun storage facility will work. There will be enough in play to make sure that doesn't happen. Point here though is that you can't possibly argue that this would infringe on your safety in any way, and in theory it would make the people at large more secure.
Let me summarise this all for you in a few quick sentences. Guns are not inherently evil, but if we follow the spirit of the constitution we really have no pressing need for them. I suggest we find a way to super-secure hunting guns, and severely tighten our handgun standards, lest we end up hurting ourselves.
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