I think people in the United States are very stupid when it comes to gun control versus gun rights. We talk and talk about the Second Amendment giving citizens the right to bear arms, and yet we forget that this Amendment, like the rest of the Constitution, was created at the beginning of the 19th century, when technology, especially weapons technology, was far different than what we have today.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Revolutionary war, the guns in those days could only fire 1 bullet before the person had to re-load, and had a total fire rate of three per minute. People often hunted for their food and had to fend for themselves during harsh times and war with both Native Americans and the British, French, and Spanish in their backyards.

Today, we still yak about gun rights and forget that weapons today aren't the weapons the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the Constitution. Weapons today can carry massive clips, up to a hundred and beyond at a time before having to re-load. And the fire rate is unimaginable- several bullets per second on the semi-assault rifles, which is what the Newtown shooter had when he massacred the children. 

Why do we talk about gun rights and those monstrosities of weapons in the same sentence? I want to ask the biggest gun advocate in the room: in what situation in your potential day-to-day life will you need a sniper rifle? When will you need a weapon that can fire 100 bullets in 10 seconds? When will you need more than 1 gun, if you live in a city?

You won't. A self-defense situation, if you want to argue that angle, won't take more than a couple bullets from your clip. So in that case, and looking at some international gun laws, I have created a wish list that, in my perfect world, would exist to stop the madness that is enveloping this nation:

1. No more than 2 guns for a person who lives in a rural setting and/or on a farm.

2. No more than 1 gun for a person who lives anywhere else.

3. Gun magazines can carry a maximum of 6 bullets at once.

4. A gun's firing rate must be capped at 1 bullet per second.

5. No scopes of any kind, except on hunting rifles with slow firing rates.

6. A person must have a valid reason for owning the gun, and "self defense" doesn't count.

7. A person must go through an extensive background check before purchasing any weapon, and must go through a waiting period of 8 weeks.

8. A gun must be re-registered every year, with failures to re-register a weapon resulting in jail time.

9. Any store that sells guns and ammunition must be inspected and licensed every 6 months.

All these would apply to civilian weapons only. Call me crazy, call me anti-American, but if these measures were enacted, I believe it would help make it difficult to repeat what happened at Newtown.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: I should add that I tried to avoid affecting hunters and hunting (see 5), but it's almost impossible after banning assault/semi assault weapons, so I gave up on that idea. Personally, I don't favor hunting but I support that right for others and wouldn't want to limit that activity in any way. In the end, though, I threw in the towel and gave up on the hunting idea. See comment 3.1 and then pretend that there isn't any hunting... or pretend that it doesn't get affected.