To put this simply … when the constitution protects a right, be it to free speech or to arms, there must be a compelling reason to legally limit it — a reason which must meet different standards depending on what the court has ruled. i.e. you can arrest people for yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire, because they are trying to begin a stampede in which people can get hurt. But any limit must pass a standard of some kind. A ban on people not owning nukes is rather easy to support, wouldn’t you say? As I’ve pointed out, however, a ban on a specific type of rifle is not supportable.

For more detail …

It can be argued that the constitution does allow ownership of any weapon, as it basically did back in the day. But (almost) nobody makes this argument anymore.

The constitution is accepted to protect the ownership of personal arms that are in widespread use. While this would/should include AR-15′s and pistols, it would not include nukes.

But in any case … no one is arguing for legal ownership of nukes or nerve gas. I’ll gladly accept, and even insist on, that limitation on my right to bear arms. And having such a WMD (which requires a great deal of effort to build/get the parts for) would make a person more dangerous than other common weapons at hand — such as a speeding car or an axe. Duh.

But, as I’ve stated, a semi-automatic rifle does NOT give you any more lethality than a non-semi automatic weapon, and so should not be regulated in a different manner. It’s either try to ban pretty much all of them or look for a different solution since a partial ban would be useless. Duh again.

Do we want to pass a law for that all teachers MUST be armed? Of course not. Would it make sense to let some teachers who are willing to do so and are willing to take adequate precautions carry arms to school? Hell yes. (though this might be less than 1% every defender is a positive.)

And yes … private OWNERSHIP of guns is low in Israel, but private ACCESS to guns is high. Every Israeli male (and I’m not sure if all, but a lot of females) go through mandatory army service, including in the reserves. I don’t know all the details, but most are allowed to take their weapons home. Check it out.

But if you think this truly makes it easier for some class of criminal to get some kind of gun, I think that’s nuts. Criminals can get all the guns they want, and adding an arbitrary 3 years to keep otherwise legal adults from buying certain types of rifles from FFL’s will not do anything to make anyone safer or make “bad things come of this.”

It’s either legal or illegal to buy a gun from a dealership, and right now it’s legal for 18 year olds to buy these guns in most states.