AHC: Strict firearm laws in the USA

It only gives a reason to abolish the Second Amendment: "We have no militia anymore, so we do not need this amendment."

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

So either the founders were wrong (try selling that one), or the US isn't a free state anymore? Good luck with that argument.
 
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

So either the founders were wrong (try selling that one), or the US isn't a free state anymore? Good luck with that argument.
Neither. It's just that history and modern warfare made militias obsolent. And that the founders could not know.
 
Neither. It's just that history and modern warfare made militias obsolent. And that the founders could not know.

but you can't just 'abolish' an amendment (thank God)... only another amendment can do that. So the 2nd Amendment will stand until widespread popular opinion against it allows the amendment process to nullify it.
 
but you can't just 'abolish' an amendment (thank God)... only another amendment can do that. So the 2nd Amendment will stand until widespread popular opinion against it allows the amendment process to nullify it.
You can. Adding an amendment that simply abolishs an older amendment is defacto the same as abloshing an amendment.
 
What must happen that the USA introduce very strict firearm laws that prohibit most citizens the possession of firearms of any kind?

1) Domination of the political landscape by hoplophobes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplophobia). This first might be kinda-sorta possible following a large-scale incident, something like Columbine only with several hundred grade school (kindergarten, first- and second-grade) kids get killed. Getting the laws actually passed would be difficult because the NRA and firearms manufacturers are corporations that can spend unlimited money buying politicians.

2) The owners of the Supreme Court indicating that it's their pleasure that any challenges to firearms laws on 2nd Amendment grounds be denied. Note that the 2nd Amendment needn't be repealed, all that's required is for restrictions to become severe enough. This isn't likely in today's environment because, again, firearms manufacturers are corporations and the current Supreme Court is in their pockets. This may change in the future, however.

All that being said, look at the current Drug Laws and tell me how well they're working. "When [thing] is outlawed, only outlaws will have [thing]" is true almost no matter what [thing] is.
 
Neither. It's just that history and modern warfare made militias obsolent. And that the founders could not know.

The Vietnamese, Libyans, and assorted other groups and nationalities seem to indicate otherwise.

They seem to be going fairly well in Libya.

Yup. Took Tripoli just a few days ago.

That's a civil war. And thus different 'rules' apply.

Why? Also, is Afghanistan a civil war? Iraq? True, in both locals have... worked with... the invaders, but most of those local allies are indistinguishable from militia themselves.

Vietnam was in many ways a civil war... in which the conventional military of the south was utterly ineffective at defeating the militia of the north.

If anything, modern warfare has INCREASED the ability of a 'well regulated militia' to defeat a conventional military. The lethality of man-portable weapons has increased tremendously. Modern communications systems allow a dispersed force to retain cohesion. Modern transportation allows for rapid assembly of a dispersed force (and the rapid dispersion of a concentrated one, of course). Modern technology has introduced a host of effective weapons that can be improvised from ordinary commercial items.
 
I have an ironic twist. The US could take the position that the populus is an "unorganized militia". How would that change things? Simple- they could regulate the weapons authorized for members of the unorganized militia to possess. Simple and constitutional.
 
It only gives a reason to abolish the Second Amendment: "We have no militia anymore, so we do not need this amendment."
And if something horrible involving civilians and firearms (like a much more bloody 'remake' of the Columbine massacre with legally acquired firearms) happened just before that ...
(It would really be ironic if the NRA had been the target of that massacre.)

Except that everything you say about the Geneva convention and all that is OTL. And, as you've noticed, in OTL we haven't abolished the 2nd Amendment. So I still don't see what it has to do with your AHC.
 
To expand a little on this militia idea and how it relates to strict firearm control I think the govt would declare certain weapons as hunting weapons: double barrel shotguns, bolt action rifles below a certain calibre, single shot rifles above that calibre. These would have little regulation. They would then say that other weapons; handguns, semi-automatic etc are only available to members of the militia, the militia being necessary for a free state. The militia needs to have a recognisable uniform to avoid being shot in wartime as partisans, so the govt sets out the uniform standard and the level of training needed to get the uniform. The upshot is that if you want handguns you have to attend militia training and once you have passed that you have to buy your militia uniform and after that you can buy your handgun and semi-auto rifle. You would have to attend militia refreshers regularly in order to maintain the well regulated part.

If this was introduced in the very early 1900s I dont think it would generate the upheaval it would for example in the 50s when the Reds were thought to be everywhere. Over the course of the century considerably less guns would enter the US population, meaning many less guns than OTL.

Does that make sense?
 
Yeah, that makes sense, but I don't see why the government would care whether the citizenry had 'militia' arms or not. You probably need some kind of big, sustained crime scare around the same time--though why the response wouldn't be just the same as OTL I don't know.
 
What if it was a positive thing, the US govt wanting a militia that is useful for modern conditions in the wake of the Spanish war? They call on the patriotic duty of Americans to join the militia, buy the uniform and the guns in the hope that the gun nuts will be partly trained and experienced for the next war.

Of course the price of this patriotic duty is to take some time to join the militia and do some training, perhaps its only a long weekend or whatever and buy the militia uniform. This would turn away those who weren't commited enough, they'd say screw it and buy a double barrel shotgun and a bolt action rifle for legitimate hunting. The unintended consequence, from the perspective of OTL, is that way less handguns and semi-autos are produced and those that are are in the hands of people who took the time to join the militia and pay for the uniform and other militia stuff. So that in 2011 not every junkie and wannabe thug has a handgun to wave around and not every sulky teenager has a semi-auto rifle to get revenge with.
 
The militia was to be all able bodied citizens. No mention or definition at the time required a uniform. That is the standing army which is separate from the militia. Again you need to read the Federalist papers to see what the founders meant. They just won a revolution against their home country. Yes they were British citizens fighting against their own government, not fighting against a foreign invader. They saw that if in the future the people were forced to do them same that they would have to have the right to arms. And by arms they meant military grade arms. They did not mean only arms for hunting.This comes down to whether your government trusts its citizens or not. Our founders definitely put their trust in the people. Today it seems our Govt. and many other people do not. I forget which founder said it but , he expressed the opinion that to have a free country the Govt. should fear an armed populace not that the unarmed people fear the Govt.
 
Neither. It's just that history and modern warfare made militias obsolent. And that the founders could not know.

That's a dangerous road to go down though.

Well, there was not radio or television in the 1790's, so telecommunicantions should not be protected by the first or the fourth amendments. Since there were no computers, then we cannot know how they would have felt about email infiltrations and the like....

In the eighth, is the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment together or individually? Id est, is a cruel punishment allowed provided that it is not unusual, and is an unusual punishment allowed if it is not cruel?

Should the absence of religious fanatcism in the days of the framers mean that the government view the "wall of separation" in the same way the French Republic pretty tightly conforms to its official secularism?

Since labor unions did not exist in 1790, then surely the right to freely assemble was not meant for them, following your reasoning, of course.
 

burmafrd

Banned
this has been somewhat interesting. Clearly the OP has no concept of the US Constituition or how it works and how ammendments work and the like.

Bottom line is that to regulate weapons that matter in war- which are not handguns- would be a much tougher task then the OP thinks. I believe he does not get the fact that outside of automatic weapons, the vast majority of pressure and issue on gun control is with handguns.
 
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