A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
In your opinion, what should be the legal limit to the 2A? Did Heller go too far, or did it not go too far enough?
Not nearly far enough, IMO, but perhaps on different axes to our current political situation.
My dreamworld 2A is explicitly military, and would have tiered sections for access to higher level/more dangerous firearms, of which concealed carry handguns would be the top. The current and last couple generations of standard infantry arm should be the base level. So ARs>hunting guns>beltfed>handguns. Combine with national service/training for the lower rungs (well regulated), add in some graduated time requirements (perhaps with graduated age requirements). As an example if you have had access to firearms for ten years, have completed all the safety training for all the tiers and are thirty years of age, you could get a CCW permit. I view personal carry as a side benefit of the 2A, not the main point, and handguns are by far the most dangerous in terms of crime.
Why ARs ahead of hunting guns?
Adherence to the original intent of the amendment. The intent is for the "security of a free state", not pheasants. It would be constitutional to ban hunting outright, plus all guns of a "purely sporting use". Only long tradition and statute protect those guns, but the 2A protects AR-15s (and 1903s, M14s and Garands etc.) almost above all else.
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Are explosives an "arm"? I've toyed with arguing that they aren't, but applying that sort of logic to our present tech-base leads to some rather strained conclusions. I think a lot of the problems average out to normalcy under current conditions, but in the abstract, it seems like there really are developments in arms that aren't survivable for what I recognize as a functional society. Technology places an increasing amount of power in the hands of the individual, and at some point I'm not sure how society can survive an individual's veto.
That's a difficult one. I believe both that the amendment as written, under original intent does include artillery and explosives, and that that might be part of it that should be amended. It's a tough question, because the danger factor just rises exponentially, and there's less argument for auxiliary uses.
My own thoughts are similar.
When I was much younger, I had an epiphany: technology grants power to the individual, and the better the technology, the more power granted. Assuming an open-ended increase in tech, and given that destroying is generally easier than creating or defending, there comes a point where individuals are too powerful for complex society to survive. I think explosives, particularly powerful modern explosives, make modern society more or less impossible if they aren't pretty tightly restricted.
The best solution to the problem I've been able to find is to try to redefine what an "arm" is, working from the idea that "arms" are descriminate, able to focus their effects on specific targets. Rocks, knives, bows, muskets, ar-15s, railguns, lasers, even Artillery are all capable of accurate, discriminate effect. Fire, explosives and fragmentation, poison, biologicals, and exotic physics effects are not. I think most within the gun culture would agree that the value we see in the Second Amendment comes from discriminate weapons, not indiscriminate ones. I think trying to get people to recognize the distinction might help. The (straw?) Libertarian ideal of "recreational McNukes" is actually a serious problem that we need to avoid if we possibly can.
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