My rebuttal would be "Why not?" Are we not designing the best possible weapons for our soldiers to use in defending themselves? Sure, soldiers embark on offensive operations too. But are not these the very best weapons we can conceive of for someone in a dangerous situation? If you're confronted by several attackers do you want a semi-automatic sidearm (a-la the Colt 1911) or a flintlock? If a gang of thugs bent on harm, riot and destruction approaches your business, person, employees, and customers do you want a muzzle loader or a semi-automatic AR with a 30 round magazine?
The entire notion of some government flunky deciding what we need or don't need is not only ludicrous it flies in the face of the 2nd Amendment. Remember this simple fact:
The 2nd Amendment does not grant anyone the right to bear arms. It guarantees the government will not infringe upon our inalienable right to keep and bear arms. No one needs to demonstrate a need to keep and bear a particular kind of arms any more than they need to demonstrate a need to use certain words protected by the 1st Amendment.
Well said.
I don’t know where they get off ignoring the text...”the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. It doesn’t get any more direct or clear than that. “Keep and BEAR,” does not mean locked in a safe in your house.
Didn’t SCOTUS rule in US vs Miller that military style weapons are protected under the 2nd Amendment? The Founding Fathers knew that militia members had to provide their own weapons.