Comments by "JI80" (@ji8044) on "Kurt Russell SCHOOLS The View on The Need For The Second Amendment" video.
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Kurt Russell doesn't know jack about the 2nd Amendment. Individual gun ownership was comparatively little in the colonies, except for hunting rifles held by those living close to the frontier of course. Handguns were very pricey, exclusively close range weapons, (the Mel Gibson movie notwithstanding), and completely useless at distance. They were used mostly for ceremonial purposes, like dueling of course, which is why the standard dueling distance was about 10-12 yards. Any farther away and there would have been no danger at all.
There were so few guns in the American colonies overall that the Continental Congress spent the entire war trying to obtain them. The majority of guns used by the Continental Army came from the Dutch, French and Spanish. What guns were not held on frontier farms were kept locked up in the town powder storehouse along with shot for use by the militia (hence the 2nd Amendment reference to that). If you are familiar with the battles of Lexington and Concord, it's really about the patriots taking the powder, guns and shot from militia storage and transporting them to be hidden outside the towns.
One museum exhibit summarizes the situation:
"Patriots had begun to amass caches of weapons as tensions grew in the months leading up to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, seizing British arms from royal storehouses, provincial magazines and supply ships. At the beginning of the Revolution, the army relied on soldiers to bring weapons from home, including hunting guns, militia arms and outdated martial weapons from the French and Indian War. American soldiers also carried weapons captured from the enemy in the field and reissued to Continental and state troops. A growing number of American manufacturers produced weapons on government contracts, as the domestic arms industry expanded to try to meet the demand, but they could not sustain the American troops through a long conflict. Success on the battlefield ultimately depended on the hundreds of thousands of arms supplied by France and Spain. Shipments of arms and ammunition from France began arriving in 1776 and continued for the rest of the war."
So it's a complete myth that individual American gun ownership was the key to our becoming an independent nation because everybody owned one and was trained to shoot. Finally, Volokh is clearly wrong about the right of the people. Whenever the phrase is used, it means as a group, not individually. For instance you can't form an assembly with just one person, so the right of the people to assemble implies engaging in group activity.
Finally, every single member of the Supreme Court DOES believe you CAN abridge the right of the people to bear arms, because you cannot under any circumstance bring a gun into the Supreme Court building. (nor into the Capitol either of course)
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