Thread: Supreme Court finds individual right to own guns

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I have a funny feeling that the founders considered it common sense that the right to bear arms for home security would not even be in question. i don't have any historical evidence to offer you that statement, but that's where i am coming from for the most part.

Also, horse ownership was never considered as a fundamental necessity to the security of a free state. Arms are more than just guns, but even a gun can still neutralize the best soldier in any army today.

For many of them, I'm sure it was a common tool for use in the defense of themselves and their homes. Indeed, it was likely so necessary that it was hard to imagine living without one. But we don't need those sorts of weapons to secure our own defense any longer. Our social institutions have become stable enough and extend far enough into the world that we can rely on them to provide these protections, and there are other, newer tools that we can make use of as well. Indeed, the oldest security tool of all time is the most effective in our current world of danger: man's best friend, Canis familiaris. So while the Founders may have believed that the day would never come when arms (whether firearms or swords or laser pistols) were not needed to secure himself and his property against the troubles of the world, this does not mean they were right. And while horse ownership was never considered a fundamental necessity for the promotion of a free society, freedom of movement was. This lead to many localities writing laws that gave horses and horse-drawn vehicles the right of way when cars came on the scene. I can easily imagine an alternate world where the citizenry, who, at the time, mostly did not own cars and did own horses, demanded a constitutional amendment that allowed and gave the right of way to ridden or hitched horses on public roadways. After all, they wrote and passed an amendment that prohibited the production and sale of alcohol.