"willshak" wrote in message
m...


Disclaimer: I'm not anti-gun (I have a CCW permit), but....
'Arms' are a little different than they were 224 years ago. At the time,
they only had single shot muzzle loading firearms.
The subject of the other freedoms have not changed as much.

What makes sense to me is that firearms analogous to those owned by citizens
at the time the 2nd Amendment was passed are covered by the amendment, in
modern terms: rifles, shotguns, handguns. Just as freedom of the press is
not confined to newspapers and handbills, "muzzle loading" is irrelevant in
the sense that developing technology doesn't mean that the basic right is
available only to those precise forms in existence at the end of the 18th
century. So the usual nonsensical argument, "Oh, so everybody has a right
to own a howitzer, or how about a SCUD?" fails because those are a class of
weapons (artillery) not owned by citizens at the time of the 2nd Amendment
(with rare exceptions like the masters of civilian ocean-going vessels which
sometimes had cannon).