Banning guns would, however, prevent honest, law abiding citizens from the pleasure of shooting, the ability to protect themselves from harm and eliminate a constitutional guarantee intended as a deterrent to governmental tyranny, which are all part of the reason the Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.
Facts and history matter
Yes, a healthy fear of government as well as the ability to defend a nation, not hunting, are why we have the Second Amendment. That wise and healthy fear of government was founded in a newborn nation that had an extremely limited federal presence. Today’s federal government would strike fear in even the most ardent federalists of their day, so much so that at least one scholar has recently stated that we “have abandoned our founders.”
Banning guns, yes, even semi-automatic rifles, would deprive law abiding citizens from their constitutional right to keep and bear arms and that would be intolerable. For those like Condi Rice who think the Second Amendment is a quaint relic of the past, we can only ask why and if it is, why are the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments not in the same category?
