Obama was speaking on the news about new restrictions regarding military weapons and licensing. That goto be a good thing ain't it!! A start at least?

While agree about licensing, why should I be restricted in my ownership of something just because some nut-job went even nuttier? If he'd driven a car into a shopping centre would you want to ban my ownership of a car?

Great! Now ban or licence tobacco and alcohol sales, as these contribute to far more deaths and injuries per year.



I agree. The American Constitution give citizens the right to bear arms, but surely it doesn't require an amendment to require that right to be accompanied by common sense and personal responsibility.

Attawapiskat doesn't pull at the heart strings of most people, as most of them think a reservation is something you make at a fancy restaurant weeks in advance.

Here's some math Ontarian's may remember from the G8 and G20 summit a couple of years ago.

+1 couldn't agree more

I always see that as the most stupid argument ever.

A car is made as a method of transport, in the wrong hands it could kill (see the Cardiff incident recently).

A gun is a weapon, the vast majority made with the intention of killing something.

You can't sneak a car into a classroom, office or anywhere. A gun you can.

You could kill with a spoon for gods sake.

The only reason someone should legitimately own a gun, is if they were involved in sport or hunting.

You don't need a semi-automatic for either.

If they had sense, which they don't.

For pistols they should only grant licenses to people who have valid membership to competitive clubs, bullets should not be sold publicly, only obtainable at the clubs and against the law to take them from the clubs, the clubs could lose their license if people take them away, all bullets have to be accountable for.

For hunting rifles, licenses should only be granted to people with valid hunting licenses and bullets limited.

Any guns should be locked away at home and during transport.

Licenses should be annually re-applied for and should also be granted if pass police and medical checks. If re-application fails then the gun should be confiscated and sold to someone who can pass the rigid tests.

It would never happen of course and as someone mentioned above, how would they get the zillions of guns already out there.


I don't believe anyone should have a right to have a gun, it should be a privilege.

Good for you. You can stand on your high-horse all you like but don't get to make the decisions that limit my freedom just because you have different opinion or belief than me.

The vast majority of guns I suspect are for shooting at targets with. My boss has certainly never killed anything but paper and clays with his anyway. The few times Ive been shooting thats all I was after too.

As my boss, the gun enthusiast, points out, regulation in this case is a bit pointless, they were not the shooters guns, he took them out of the control of the registered lawful owner. The issue here is that they were not safely under lock and key in the first place, and there are laws already to address that.

My concern is that the primary difference between an AR15 assault rifle, and a semi automatic hunting rifle is that an AR is designed not to jam under repeated firing... the danger of jamming is not really a factor in hunting when once the first shot is fired the deer (or whatever) is out of there if you miss it, but the potential for abuse in light of recent atrocities is clear to see, and its not like they were not once banned anyway, so starting there is an obvious first step to me.

You can argue that its an infringement on your civil liberties to not have the right to own one, but there are plenty of things that, for the greater good, are not legal to own even though in the hands of a responsible adult they may be relatively harmless or only a risk to the user. Certain drugs for starters.

Then again if the US frames legislation anything like that in Canada there will he holes in it big enough to drive a bus through. The laws here from what I can tell are bizarre in terms of what is allowed and what isnt.

The bottom line for me is if he hadnt had an AR15 he still had two 9mm automatic pistols that his mother legally owned. Gun control alleviates some of the problem, but people would still go on shooting rampages, they would just be armed differently. The real thing to address is the root cause of what is making these people want to do these awful things in the first place, and that is an even tougher problem to address.

As I don't subscribe to utilitarianism and I rather like liberty, of course I'll argue that its an infringement of my rights to limit my ownership of firearms, which are specifically laid out in the Bill of Rights. And I'm a proponent of original intent.

Someone once told me that the meaning of "right to bear arms" got skewed along the way to man "guns" when it actually was refering to heraldry and a "coat of arms" since the British pronounced the the Americas were not allowed "coat of arms" once they pulled out.

But then we were drinking at the time.

Shooters, I think.

That's very gracious of you, thank you. In my view he does, but I respect your different point of view (see what I did there?).

Curious as to what the bill of rights is generally seen to cover...are arms like RPG's etc seen to be included ?

I read this to mean that the government can regulate all but those not designed for home defense.

Thank you. Is this the key phrase?

"that Miller limited the type of weapon to which the Second Amendment right applied to those in common use for lawful purposes."

Does the amendment only apply to arms that are in common use for lawful purposes ? If so, do military assault rifles class as arms in common use for lawful purposes ?

That's a 1970s spin on the law. Prior to that the Constitution was generally read to mean that the right to bear arms applied in the only the context of an organized militia. There's a history of arms regulation in various States, including Texas, going back to the mid-1800s. It was a fantastic political coup by a group of conservatives to first take control of the rather dozy NRA and then to use it to reshape law and public opinion so as to make handgun ownership seem as normal as lawn mower ownership.

If only the same group could seize control of the LCBO.

You will all of course have noticed that over the years the US constitution has been amended in various ways as times and values have changed.

For example, at one time Alcohol was prohibited, an amendment that was repealed by a later amendment. So the fact that the constitution protects the right to bear arms is not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle to US gun control, after all, at one time it protected the right to own slaves too. Times change.


The original intent of the amendment was to allow the people of the US to keep arms in order to overthrow a corrupt government by force if necessary. Whether thats still necessary or relevant Im not sure.. people in other nations have managed that recently without a constitutional right to do so.