...from Cliffbeer2:
"The bottom line is that police have a perspective on gun laws which makes sense to a policeman's job - they want to be armed so as to have the authority to carry out the law, but they don't really want members of the public to be TOO well armed (The Founders felt otherwise. I'll get into that in a moment), and they certainly don't want criminals to be armed.
That perspective is just that...a perspective which is a sub-set of the overall population which is most likely not representative of the whole population. (Just as your post is a sub-set and most likely not representative of the whole population.)
I feel like I'm a fairly typical gun owner. I have a few "sporting" guns in my possession such as a 12 gauge shot gun, a basic hunting rifle, and a 1911 9mm handgun. The 1911 I just bought a couple weeks ago and the whole process makes complete sense: a background check to make sure you're not a crazy or a dangerous criminal, and a waiting period to make sure you're not a nut frothing with blood lust because you just caught your wife in bed with another man. (Here in Wash. St. anyone with a CCW can buy a handgun and walk out the door with it on the spot. Of course, the 2nd amend guarantees he can do that regardless.)
There's no need for full-auto weapons and there's no need for heavy artillery. KEEP IN MIND, DURING THE TIME FRAME IN WHICH OR RIGHT TO BEAR ARMSWAS ESTABLISHED, the available weapons for people to arm themselves with consisted of very poor and inaccurate weapons which were slow to fire. SO WHY WOULD WE EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO WIELD A FULL AUTO 50 CAL BASED UPON THAT CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT(!!!)? Do we need that to defend ourselves from a home invasion? Or are we worried there's a modern-day King of England trying to take away our freedoms and we do, in fact, need heavy artillery? (The Founders knew the English language pretty well, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't you say they had more than a basic grasp of the meaning of the words IN it? You darn betcha they did. If they had intended to limit the people's right to "keep and bear" only to the arms of their day - THEY'D HAVE S-A-I-D SO. But they DIDN'T. They purposely said "arms" instead of "muzzle loaders, flintlocks and bayonets" because they KNEW "arms" would change/advance over the years and they wanted "the people" to have access TO them. Why? So that "the people" wouldn't be OUTGUNNED by a tyrantical govt. The whole PURPOSE of the 2nd Amend was to ensure that "the people" could not be enslaved by same. (Read the Federalist Papers.) Further: The Founders ALSO did not say, "If at some time in the future someone somewhere decides that 'arms' have become too deadly for the people to be intrusted with them, at that time the govt shall have the authority to dictate what 'arms' the people can and cannot own and carry...HOW MANY ROUNDS their arms can hold, WHERE said arms can and CANNOT be carried, and whether the people can carry said arms CONCEALED or in the open." If they had intended any of that be the case - THEY'D HAVE SAID SO. Instead they said we have the right to keep and bear - PERIOD.
Net, I think most gun owners today are actually pretty responsible and very middle-of-the-road about it - they support background checks, limitations on the size/caliber of guns, restrictions on the rate of fire, registration requirements, waiting periods, etc. ('Pure horse feathers!!! Only lefty, anti-gunners think that way! Those are ALL "infringements". Every darned one of them. And as such they're ALL unconstitutional...it matters not what some lefty anti-gunner in a black robe has to say about it...'how he "interprets" those laws.) They don't want guns in school and they think the NRA is a bit "out there" with some of its policy statemetns being too fundamentalist. (Again - that's the lefty anti-gun crowd's thinking. THEY don't want to see an armed 'good guy' guarding our kids in school. Nooooo problemo with armed guards watching over their MONEY in a bank...or armed guards patroling THEIR property - but, by golly, 'yeeeeeeeeew' better keep 'them there' armed guards 'outta' our schools! Besides, we already have the "GUN-FREE ZONE" laws! THEY provide an 'iron dome' of absolute safety and protection for our kids. No one would EVER DARE to even bring a gun into a school let alone shoot anyone therein with it. Besides, if anyone DID - someone within the school could always use SCISSORS to fend him off...) Of course, there's a very vocal minority of gun owners who are much more fundamentalist about it all, and they get a disproportionate amount of air time for their gripes. Why? Because they're loud mouths. This group is a very small percentage of the population I think. (Well, at least you didn't call 'em stupid. But, be advised, they represent a bit more than just a "very small percentage" of the population.)
We live in a complex and increasingly crowded world where absolute rights work less and less well. (The Founders ALSO did not say, "When the world becomes too crowded and absolute rights seem to be working less and less well............") We need to be willing to consider the rights of others and compromise our own individualist desires and consider the needs of the greater good. (Thank you, Karl Marx.) It's called living in a civilized society. (History has called it by other names.) I know I don't want some crazy living next door with a bunch of automatic assault type weapons which aren't registered and laying around for my kids to see. Does that make me a "liberal"? If it does, I'll gladly accept that label and be proud of it." (You still have that right............so far.)
Obviously, the comments in (red) are mine...