Allowing assult rifles

Challenge Accepted! First I would like to thank you for the debate. It appears that this will be a free-form debate as you didn’t give any guidelines. I will use this first round to define terms and make my argument. Definitions: Constitution in this debate will refer to the Constitution of the United States and its amendments. Natural Rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. Natural rights are traditionally viewed as exclusively negative rights. Negative Rights may include civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, private property, freedom from violent crime, freedom of worship, habeas corpus, a fair trial, freedom from slavery. Assault Rifle - A military firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire. Assault rifles operate by using either propellant gases or blowback forces generated by a fired round to force back the bolt, eject the spent cartridge case, and cock the firing mechanism. A spring then pushes the bolt forward as a fresh cartridge is fed into the chamber, and the gun is fired again. Cartridges are fed into the guns from magazines holding as many as 30 rounds. Many assault rifles have attachments for grenade launchers, sniper scopes, and bayonets.http://www.britannica.com... Infringe – Act so as to limit or undermine (something); encroach on. http://oxforddictionaries.com... I only define infringe since it seems the meaning of this word has been lost when it comes to the Second Amendment of the Constitution: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This means that the government cannot act to limit or undermine the right of the people to keep and carry weapons. Judging by the laws we have in place in the United States, I would say this has not been adhered to and this is because the Constitution is just a piece of paper at the end of the day. With or without the Constitution this right will always exist forever and in every country because it is a Natural Right. This is the thought behind the founders of the United States, that even if a government tells you something is illegal you still have the Natural Right because it is inalienable. I believe this is all that needs to be argued that assault rifles should be allowed. You must prove that the Constitution allows for the ban or limit on assault rifles before we can debate any of the pros and cons of civilians keeping and carrying assault rifles. I would like to point out that any statistics that you try to bring up do not amount to constitutionality. Another point I would like to make before I conclude is that you cannot use any Supreme Court rulings to back up your case to attempt to prove the Constitution allows for a ban or limit on assault rifles. This is for the simple reason that the Constitution does not delegate the right to interpret the Constitution to them, which means that the ninth and tenth amendments of the Constitution should be applied. This means the right to interpret the Constitution belongs to the States of the United States and to the people. This can be found in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson respectively. You can find current uses of this right, which is called Nullification, today which is used by California to override unconstitutional federal laws prohibiting the use or ownership of medical Marijuana and in 2005 when several states refused to implement the unconstitutional Real ID Act of 2005. Now I would like to talk about a few of your points for the purpose of debate. “Who needs an assault rifle?” I answer this rhetorically with, who needs a gun, a car, a computer? Well most of the time we don’t need any of these things, but there are those occasions when we find it very convenient to have them. It can be used for many different purposes, such as killing, a source of entertainment (by going to the range)or it can be used to defend. Defending doesn’t necessarily mean killing, as just the sight of the weapon may make an intruder think twice. There are probably other uses that I can’t even imagine; not all uses are good and not all uses I approve of, but I will never approve of infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. “Guns are a great thing, but they are also causing many unwanted and tragic deaths in the world. In aurora CO., the attacker used assult rifles to kill and injure dozens. Imagine if he only had a pistol or hunting rifle, much less damege would have been done.” I think guns are a great thing too, and that they do cause many unwanted and tragic deaths. I also think cars are great and that they cause many unwanted and tragic deaths. A car is considered a deadly weapon and also has the potential to kill and injure dozens. Should we ban cars or just punish people that do bad things with cars? I don’t mean to imply with this question that you want to ban all guns because you clearly don’t. I would also like to say that even a pistol can kill and injure dozens seeing as a Glock handgun has a 30 round magazine option. I think it would also be fair to imagine if only one or more people had a gun in that theater, then they could have shot back. I think the big issue is gun-free zones, like that movie theater, which is where most of these tragic gun shootings occur. We can what-if this to death talking about him having body armor and a rifle, but I would like to make one point which I think we can all hold valid, which is most people don’t like to be shot back at and tend to take cover, even if they have body armor. “In the case of self defence, a home invader can easily be stopped with one pistol, or a shotgun, these can scare off or kill multiple people at once. So why do we need assult rifles?” I agree that in the case of self-defense most home invaders can be stopped with a pistol or shotgun, I suggest the shotgun, but maybe a riot breaks out or some rare situation occurs that it would be the best choice of weapon, then it’s better to have it and never use it then to not have it and need it. That is a statement about guns in general. It’s kind of like your spare tire for your car, you will almost never need it but it’s great to have when your tire blows out. “If by rare chance our government became controlling amd tyranical, there is always a way to get weapons either from overseas or from many who will still keep and hide assult rifles, and defecting militia members. So why do we need assult rifles?” I love this argument. If the government become tyrannical you are right the guns will be just as available as when they are banned. Then you move on to saying how people will have assault rifles even if they are banned because they will never give them up. Also the last assault weapon ban grandfathered in all current assault weapons so they were still on the streets any way. Last you say that we can get assault rifles from militia members but I think you mean military members that disobey unconstitutional orders, which is true they will bring a lot of goodies. Militia members are simply citizens like you and I that are called to arms as opposed to professional soldiers, it has nothing to do with the standing army. Anyway I think history shows that this may be too late to start preparing to defend against tyrannical government. If it were possible for the Jews to have done this in Germany once they started going door to door rounding them up, I think they would have. Remember that Germany was a Constitutional Republic when this started happening. Anyway, I have the right to be prepared and I’d rather not take any chances, so “Don’t Tread on Me.”