Can you walk me through the other enumerated rights in the Constitution the require mandatory training before exercising them? Freedom of Religion? Vote? I have to take a test before I can be secure in my person, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?
Maybe an intelligence test to vote?
Maybe?
Let's just cut the self delusional, hyperbolic BS and try to be honest with yourself. These may all be Rights but like everything else in the world they are not identical. Saying they are the same is the same as saying men and women are the same, they are equal in some ways and different in others. I know it requires more thought but give it a try.
The simple fact is that firearms ownership require more responsibility than free speech. And it's pretty hard to
accidentally say something that
immediately results in physical harm or death to a bystander.
The attitude that firearms ownership doesn't inherently require an understanding of the necessary responsibility is what leads to an NDs. And there are lots of gun owners out there that don't get it, those are the ones calling it an AD and saying it just happens sometimes, BS it doesn't just happen.
And if you want historical context, I find it highly unlikely that the authors of the BoR, who lived in a time where firearms ownership, knowledge, and use was universal could even imagine a time when a second generation basement dweller who's only knowledge of firearms came from Call of Duty would ever exist. And communities were small, so the local gunsmith would likely know who the village idiot was and not sell him a gun, all without the gov making a law.
I think I made it clear I wasn't looking for Gov. to put in a requirement, Gov. F's up everything. Just that I could understand where that position would come from intellectually and it makes for a harder fact based argument.
And it is a fact that we do restrict Rights. A training requirement would a restriction on a right, but we restrict Freedom of Religion in that if your religion preaches death to homosexuals, you still can't do that. And we restrict Freedom of Speech with the classic you can't yell fire in a theater. And I don't have a problem requiring an ID to vote, another restriction. So the argument that it's a Right and
can't be restricted falls flat in the face of the facts. So you best have a better argument that that, and these BS NDs make that more difficult.
If you're going to fight the anti-gun agenda you need to have arguments that just might work on them and the undecided, and that means facts and understanding where they are coming from, and countering with an argument that works for you and against them. Just shouting "RIGHTS"is preaching to the choir, it hasn't worked so far and it's not going to magically start working.