George Washington Would Have Owned an AR-15

American Thinker.com ^ | April 7, 2018 | Daniel John Sobieski

[Kaslin]

First the gun-control zealots insisted that the right to bear arms, the second of ten delineated individual rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights was not an individual right. Then, when the U.S. Supreme Court said in Heller Vs. D.C. (2008) that it was in fact an individual right, the argument was that the ruling only applied to the federal enclave known as the District of Columbia. When the Supreme Court in MacDonald vs. Chicago said it was indeed a national right, the argument turned to “sensible restrictions” such as arguing the Founding Fathers did not anticipate semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Well, neither did they anticipate the Internet, social media, and blogs when they protected free speech and the press in the First Amendment. True, some freedoms are not absolute, such as yelling “fire” in the proverbial crowded theatre, but as regards the Second Amendment one fact is paramount. When it was written the both the government and the people had the same weapon -- the musket -- which could be called the semi-automatic weapon of its day. The Second Amendment did not come with an asterisk nor is any of our rights enshrined in the Constitution in any way dependent on technology.

Yet U.S. District Judge William Young perceived a qualifying asterisk when he dismissed a case challenging the Massachusetts ban on so-called “assault” weapons and high-capacity magazines:

[GingisK]

They do have charm, that is for sure.