A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal (to balance gun rights and gun protections):?Gun clubs that are officially formed by a township, borough, or city-ward should construct an official armory on a training ground owned by the municipality. Dues paying members would support regular education in gun safety, marksmanship, drill, good civil order, and paintball exercises/games that would simulate light-infantry actions. As such, they would be considered a "well-regulated militia." The weapons would be purchased at personal expense and "owned" by the individual club-members. The weaponry would be of sufficient strength for an adequately large-joint-club action to seize heavy weaponry, during small engagements against federal military forces. The arms would be stored in private lockers at the armory. At any one time, one-third of club members would hold their arms at home -- properly and safely stored and subject to inspection by the officers. The armory would be guarded at all times by the membership. The members would elect their own officers and club-representatives would elect cross-club joint "field and command grade" officers. Emergency legislation by the Commonwealth, could regularize the militias as part of the State National Guard. Competition (IOC sports sanctioned) arms, one 5 to 9 shot personal-defense pistol, one 2 barrel or 3-shot pump shotgun, and one single- or double-action hunting-rifle (not semi-automatic) with a 3-shot magazine, which are each insured for damage and registered to a person licensed for use (at the level of a driver's license) may be kept in the home at all times. This is what is protected by the bill of rights. A model is the Cantons of Switzerland.

The sport and hunting equipment is not the issue. The hunting tools can all be at home. A hunter doesn't really need more than a 3-shot rifle or shotgun, a pistol, and a knife. However, to have and use these non-military weapons, I do assert that they should be licensed and insured, with the competence-level certification and “no-fault” coverage for damage and injury required of drivers. What this modest proposal is meant to solve is the right to own military-grade weapons but keep them from use by disturbed individuals. In order to protect freedom from military invasion and/or military insurrection, to begin with, citizens would need to be at least capable Light-Infantry: automatic assault rifles, RPGs, SAWs etc. As above: "The weaponry would be of sufficient strength for an adequately large-joint-club action to seize heavy weaponry, during small engagements against federal military forces." This set of military arms are not what people mean by “assault weapons.”

What people call "assault weapons" are semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic machine-pistols, with large magazines (holding more than around 9 or so cartridges.) It is legal to own these semiautomatic weapons, but most are easily "illegally" converted to being fully automatic or to defeat the "semi" with things like bump-stocks (which are in some places illegal.) Very often, the owners of such weapons say that they are a necessary check-and-balance to domination of the States by the federal government and/or against authoritarian takeover of the federal government. I think this probably was on the minds of the "framers" of the 2nd-amendment to the constitution, although historical documents do not explicitly include mention of that reason. My disagreement is with the people arguing for private ownership of semiautomatic weapons for this reason, but at the same time I agree the 2nd-amendment probably has had this "back-of-the-mind" influence on our political leadership over the first 150 years of the country. However, to make this a viable argument "now," the people would need much stronger weaponry than those which are semiautomatic. The "assault weapons" of concern in the current gun-control debates only function as a threat to civilians -- especially as they get into the hands of unbalanced individuals (the extremists, the mentally ill, and the aggrieved.) Semi-automatic weapons with large magazines are not needed for sports, hunting, or personal protection and would not be effective in securing our freedom from authoritarian usurpers of freedom. I am modestly proposing a method to keep dangerous weapons out of dangerous hands and preserving reasonable holding of athletic/sporting personal arms, while at the same time increasing the strength of "well-regulated militias" to preserve our liberty. This should be satisfying to everybody on both sides of the “guns” issue.