Ok.. well thank you... No sarcasm intended... I have my own thoughts.. on the pros and cons of certain weapons... at least for me personally.. I'm kinda old school in that as far as an intruder is concerned.. 1 shot..1 kill.. and so therefore, I find no reason what so ever for me 1) waste ammunition 2) To have need of an assault weapon... ie: AK47, Mac10 etc etc... But to be fair.. a Fork, knife, hell even a spoon, could be considered an assault weapon.. in the Literal definition of Assault.. but again, same as the baseball bat, I don't wanna be that close to an intruder... For me, I prefer to have one or two, (if matched set) pistols, preferrably wheel guns.. and a Long rifle, 30/30.. I have a varmit gun, lol.. I live in Nevada in the high desert.. we have varmits..lol so a .22 will do, or hell a pellet gun.. but the point was, one or two and plenty of ammuntion for both. I've heard tell of the "checks n balances" of citizen to gov't, again, in the Literal terms... that technicality in the original writings state Well armed militia.. meaning if they have a tank I can have a tank to be evenly matched on the field of battle..and hey.. for all I know, the way shit is goin in our country, wouldn't surprise me if shots were actually gonna be fired, atm it's a "cold civil war" although... not so sure it hasn't already happened.. somewhere in this country..

FORMER Chief Justice Burger.

The idea that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to own a gun is a "fraud" according to the late Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger. Burger's pronouncement is quoted prominently in current advertising by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, the tax-exempt arm of Handgun Control, Inc.

Not surprisingly, the advertisements don't cite the place where the former Chief Justice set forth his analysis of the Second Amendment.

Because Burger never said anything about the Second Amendment when he was actually on the Supreme Court. (Half a dozen Supreme Court decisions affirm that the Second Amendment is an individual right.)

Nor did Mr. Burger write anything about the Second Amendment in a scholarly legal or historical journal. (The scholarly consensus is virtually unanimous that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right).

No, the Chief Justice wrote about the Second Amendment in Parade magazine, in a short article in January 1990. (A shorter version was later printed in some newspaper editorials.) This article represents, in a sense, the high-water mark for anti-Second Amendment "scholarship." Because the gun prohibition lobbies will continue to promote the late Mr. Burger's "research" about the Second Amendment.

On June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed by a vote of 5 to 4 the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Heller v. District of Columbia. The Supreme Court struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are "arms" for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the Regulations Act was an unconstitutional ban, and struck down the portion of the Regulations Act that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock". Prior to this decision the Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 also restricted residents from owning handguns except for those registered prior to 1975.

FYI: We do not have "unfettered access to any kind of weapon." Don't believe me? Try me, I'll prove it.

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Below is Chief Justice Burger’s article, in its entirety.
Here’s the link to his article, too.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/john-paul-stevens-court-failed-gun-control/587272/

I’m afraid you ardent 2nd Amendment followers will be disappointed.

BTW: I own several firearms, pistols, revolvers, even an AR and an AK. I’m not wanting to eliminate private gun ownership. I do believe we need to treat firearms as what they are designed to do, kill and maim.

I’m in favor of much more stringent gun control. I would like to see all gun owners be required to register ALL their firearms.I’d like to see all owners show proof of liability insurance before they can buy a firearm. Owners should be required to demonstrate their ability to safely operate, carry, store, break-down, clean and re-assemble each of their firearms. I believe owners should be retested periodically to demonstrate their proficiencies in these aforementioned categories.

Additionally, there should be a ban on high capacity magazines/clips. Why does anyone need a 30 round clip to hunt with? If you can’t kill your game with 1-2 shots, you need to return to the range as you’re a danger to fellow hunters.

Research about the Second Amendment? Read it: 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.

So what was the context that the Second Amendment was written? What was the reason for invoking a well-regulated Militia? The short answer is that the founder felt it would pose a danger to the liberty of the people.

So who's in favor of disbanding the military and establishing a well-regulated militia in it's place? Anyone? Didn't think so. So if we don't care enough for the second amendment to actually adhere why are we using it as a shield to protect our guns?

If you want to research the second amendment the following link would be a good place to start. https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24671

Don't insult our intelligence by telling us to "research the 2nd Amendment". If you want the context in which it was written, I suggest you read the Federalist Papers (#29 and #46 would be a good start.)

What makes you think that the only thing we can protect ourselves with is an AR15?

Where did you get the idea that our right to bear arms obligates us to "participate in a well-regulated militia"?

Our right to defend our lives and Property is unalienable. That right cannot be taken away from or given away by the possessor, it is inviolable.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State is the prefatory clause in the 2nd amendment.

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed is the operative clause.

Your failure to grasp the concept of this is your problem, not mine.

It should be noted that The Federalist Papers were not written to provide a definitive interpretation of the Constitution, but instead to address the question of whether the Constitution should be adopted.

Federalist Paper No. 29 is an essay by Alexander Hamilton, the twenty-ninth of The Federalist Papers. It was published on January 9, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist papers were published. It is titled "Concerning the Militia". Unlike the rest of the Federalist Papers, which were published more or less in order, No. 29 did not appear until after Federalist No. 36.

Hamilton states that a well-regulated (efficient) militia composed of the people will be more uniform and beneficial to the "public defense" of Americans. He argues that an excessively large militia can harm a nation's work force, as not everyone can leave their profession to go through military exercises. Thus, a smaller, but still well-regulated militia, is the answer. In the end, Hamilton concludes that the militia, as it is constituted directly of the people and managed by the states, is not a danger to liberty when called into use by other states to do things such as quell insurrections.

In Federalist No. 46, Madison calculates (quite accurately, BTW) that the new government could support a standing army of no more than 25,000 men, and "to these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. . . . Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

A useful quote, of course. But look at the brilliance of Madison's strategy....

The debate had, until then, been standing army vs. militia, and the federalists were getting the worst of it. The Constitution allowed Congress to form an army with no limitations save that it had to be funded no more than two years at a time (a carryover from British law) and Americans were seriously worried about a standing army (which might just take over the country, or be used by the national government to do so) and strongly supportive of defense by militia instead.

Federalist 46 deals with the issue in imaginative and brilliant form. Madison argues that standing army vs. militia is a false dichotomy. The nation can have both, and it is precisely the militia that makes the standing army a safe thing to have. Let Congress form the largest army it can possibly create, and it would still be greatly outnumbered by armed citizens answering to State-appointed officers. Madison thus neutralizes a key antifederalist argument, and demonstrates that the Army clause of the Constitution is no danger to freedom.

This of course doesn't do much for the "National Guard = militia" claim. With the dual enlistment requirement, Guardsmen must enlist in the regular Army (or other branch) Reserves. When he calls them to duty, the President doesn't use the constitutional power to call out the militia (I'm not even sure the statute implementing that power is still on the books), but legislation enacted pursuant to the Army clause.

Interesting statistics!
This jives with the research of Prof. Lott at the University of Chicago, who is a noted expert on gun laws and stats.

Here are some facts.

There are 30,000 gun related death s per year by firearms; this number is not disputed. The U.S. population is 324,059,091 as of June 22, 2016. Do the math: 0.00925% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death:

65% of those deaths are by suicide, which would never be prevented by gun laws.
15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified.
17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons – better known as gun violence.
3% are accidental discharge deaths.

So technically, “gun violence” is not 30,000 annually, but drops to 5,100. Still too many? Now lets look at how those deaths spanned across the nation.
480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago
344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore
333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit
119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington D.C. (a 54% increase over prior years)
So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws, so it is not the lack of law that is the root cause.

This basically leaves 3,825 for the entire rest of the nation, or about 75 deaths per state. That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169 and Alabama had 1.

Now, who has the strictest gun laws by far? California, of course, but understand, it is not guns causing this. It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and states. So, if all cities and states are not created equal, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.

Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific? How about in comparison to other deaths? All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assaults are all done by criminals. It is ludicrous to think that criminals will obey laws. That is why they are called criminals.

But what about other deaths each year?
40,000+ die from a drug overdose–THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!
36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths.
34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities(exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide).

Now it gets good:
200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical errors. You are safer walking in the worst areas of Chicago than you are when you are in a hospital!

710,000 people die per year from heart disease. It’s time to stop the double cheeseburgers! So, what is the point? If the liberal loons and the anti-gun movement focused their attention on heart disease, even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.).

A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total number of gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides ……………. Simple, easily preventable 10% reductions! So, you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why the focus on guns?

It’s pretty simple:
Taking away guns gives control to governments. The founders of this nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did by trying to disarm the populace of the colonies. It is not difficult to understand that a disarmed populace is a controlled populace.

Thus, the second amendment was proudly and boldly included in the U.S. Constitution. It must be preserved at all costs . So, the next time someone tries to tell you that gun control is about saving lives, look at these facts and remember these words from Noah Webster: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed.”