I have had many civil discussions on those topics. They remain civil as long as we discuss the topic and all attacks are on statements or assumptions. It becomes heated when the attacks become personal. So, I plan to keep to the topic and avoid personal attacks, and I intend to call anyone who starts making it personal.

The 2nd amendment does not provide an absolute right to own and carry a weapon. Notice that it starts out by talking about militia. Although the law is far from settled, most often that amendment is thought of as relating to militia and even the term “bear” was (before the amendment) most often used in the sense of bearing arms for your country. As recently as the Civil War, there was no US Army, but a collection of individual state militia that formed up into the army. That’s the context of the amendment. So, there isn’t an absolute constitutional right to own and carry weapons. If there were, no government could regulate them. So, that’s not a really persuasive argument.

I’m a fence sitter on this. I remember a time when a nut came onto a commuter train with an automatic weapon and killed a whole bunch of innocent people. My immediate thought as that it never would have happened if someone with a hand had been there to take the guy out. On the other hand I think of the recent incident in the Amish school house and Colombine. There has t be some regulation.

I think guns should be licensed like driving, and there should be different licenses for different types of weapons. There should be a competency test, a psychological test, and a background check. Carrying an unlicensed, concealed weapon should be a felony.

Weapons are widely available because it’s a big business. We need some laws placing liability on dealers whose weapons consistently turn up in the wrong hands, and some liability on companies that keep supplying such dealers.