In 1993 ..., quote:
Gov. Douglas Wilder signed into law a limit of one handgun purchase per month. That restriction lasted 19 years, until it was repealed by then-Gov. Robert McDonnell in 2012. Mr. McDonnell had voted in favor of the legislation as a delegate in 1993 but campaigned on a promise to repeal it, citing his "duty to protect the Second Amendment."
The problem with that logic is, there is no reason sensible gun laws cannot co-exist with the Second Amendment, which cites the need for a "well-regulated militia" and ensures "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
The problem is, some people focus on the right to bear arms and ignore the phrase "well-regulated." The most oft-cited rationale for the right to bear arms is self-defense, and it is hard to imagine that people here feel unsafe if they can only buy a dozen guns in a calendar year.[endquote]
The "problem" with the quotes (above) is that the author assumes that the 2nd amendment was written for purposes of self-defense.
It wasn't.
It was written so that The People might be armed in defiance against a government which attempts to ignore the Espoused Rights .. Dictators.
Tyrants.
The Other Side Of the Coin Is:
In truth, it has nothing to do with "Self Defense", although today it seems reasonable that this is t he most frequent usage of personal weapons.
When we accept the 'common' interpretation of History, we lose track of the protections which our fore-fathers had wisely (but perhaps too confident of our character) chosen to provide as our Legacy.
Gov. McAuliffe is attempting to reinstate that limit (of how many guns we may be "allowed" to purchase in a designated time frame) it by attaching it as an amendment to a bill that has already passed in the General Assembly, but which has not yet been signed into law, pertaining to concealed carry permits. There is little chance the GA, the majority of which is Republican, will accept the amendment — even if it takes the original bill down with it.(No, I'm not confident that I understand that paragraph. Do you?)
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is only tangentially related to "Self Defense".
The primary purpose of the Second Amendment is to provide "The People" a means to resist an Government which has grown too big for its britches and attempts to impose unilateral laws and regulations which undermine the rights of The People.
Translation: They expected us to fight for our rights .. in much the same way as did they.
Concealed Carry Permits are also tangential to the 2nd Amendment, which neither expresses nor implies any restriction on how one is "allowed" to 'Keep And Bear Arms'.
The thing about the Constitution is that it was deliberately designed to limit the powers of The Government; the Amendments were intended only to specifically affirm the rights of The People.
Politicians imposed their bias on a law, and now the confusion allows them to impose their bias on the civil rights of their constituents.
Legacy:
My father told me how my family survived The Great Depression. He took the family lever-action .30-30 hunting, when there was no hunting season, and killed a deer which fed his family for the winter.
He was an "outlaw' in the face of the law-abiding, but perhaps I may owe my own life to the deer he poached "four score and seven years ago". It fed his family; it fed my mother during a dreadful winter.
(Well, perhaps not quite that long ago, but close. The Great Depression can't be far enough behind us to allow us any comfort ... Americans Starved during those year. My mother could have starved, had not my father decided that "The Law" wasn't the most important thing. And I might never have been borne, which would have been a great tragedy! Yes, people experienced hardships from the Depression; and many children were "still-borne" because Depression Women starved. My fathet told me stories of dressjng deer in a closed garage in Elgin, Oregon for fear of Game Wardens who would have confiscated the carcass ... because my mother needed meat.)
But the Tyranny of Need is greater than the Tyranmy of Law.
TODAY... nobody starves. We have social services which provide food even to those who have not the gumption to get off their haunches and do whatever-it-takes to feed their family.
Or they desert their "partners", because they have no appreciation for the concept of a "family".
The state feeds their family ... which is, I believe improvement on The Great Depression.
What do we give in return?
How many of our rights, how much of our Proud Independence, do we concede when we admit that we cannot take care of ourselves? When we cannot feed our family?
The Government gives to us those bounties which we need to survive.
What do they take from us in return?
