Free Republic

About the worst that happened was I was called a fool and a jerk, which as things go is really small potatoes. As mentioned before, the vast majority of responses were replies to points I raised, which is fine with me. I agree that I was treated decently, and I will be mentioning that fact. Revising the Second Amendment was a topic that people on this site could probably be expected to oppose, and they did, but people here spent lots more time attacking my arguments than me personally. As a previous poster mentioned, as long as someone doesn't post something that's deliberately inflammatory, I can't see why they would have a problem here unless they were so wedded to their ideas that they viewed any disagreement as oppression or other s**t like that. And acting that way is stupid. Anyways, I haven't seen anything here to confirm the teacher's opinion, so as far as I'm concerned its all good. Thanks for your time, and have a nice day, everyone.

Most of the responses I've seen have been replying to points in my first post, and not personal attacks or the like. I'm guessing that problems other people have had have come from the way they presented themselves (ie they were looking for trouble)

On guns: Conversely, could we argue that most existing gun legislation is illegal because it is too restrictive of the types of arms citizens are allowed to carry? As pointed out somewhere in the thread, the Second does specify arms, not guns specifically.

I think Katrina will probably be a boost to those who want to let citizens keep their guns. In this situation the government was not there when people needed it to be there, so the only defense they could rely on was what they could come up with themselves. And its a bit hard to argue that legally obtained weapons caused crime when the guns in the hands of looters were stolen, and legally obtained weapons were the ones doing the defending.

As far as I've seen, most posts have disagreed with points from my first post, and not been personal attacks and the like. I'm guessing that most trouble other people have had has come from the way they've presented themselves (ie they were looking for trouble.)

On guns: Conversely, could we argue that most existing firearms legislation is unconstitutional because it is too restrictive of the types of arms that citizens are allowed to carry? Looking at New Orleans again, it's not too hard to concieve of a situation where gun control laws prevented the populance from posessing the weaponry that would allow them to protect themselves from criminals. Since the Second Amendment was created to allow citizens to defend themselves, and the hypothetical gun control laws prevented citizens from doing that effectively, it could be said that such laws were an illegal restriction on the rights of citizens to defend themselves and should be abolished.

I think Katrina will probably be a boost to those who want to let people keep their guns. The government was obviously not there when people needed it to be there, and its a bit hard to argue that legally obtained guns cause crimes when the guns in the hands of looters were stolen and the only thing protecting some people were their own personal weapons.

This was a school assignment to post an opinion on an issue at FreeRepublic and see what the reaction was. Apparently other people have had bad experiences in the past, but since I have neither been banned or seriously insulted I can't say that I have seen much evidence of that here. As far as I'm concerned, you guys are welcome to your opinions and I'm welcome to mine. Since no one shares my opinion, I'm pretty sure the Second Amendment is safe from any changes.
Finally, I would like to make clear that I have nothing against people owning guns. I'm quite sure the vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens who use their firearms responsibly, and as I mentioned in reference to Katrina I think that personal defence is an excellent reason for gun ownership. I personally think any attempt to take over the government will be put down by the military long before any kind of domestic insurgency is neccersary, but then again if you feel differently more power to you. If my post bothered you, don't worry about it. It looks like 80 million guns owners will keep anyone from messing with the Second Amendment for a long time.