Should All Firearms Be Banned ???

Here is one writer's answer to the title question:

Ban guns. All guns. Get rid of guns in homes, and on the streets, and, as much as possible, on police. Not just because of San Bernardino, or whichever mass shooting may pop up next, but also not not because of those. Don’t sort the population into those who might do something evil or foolish or self-destructive with a gun and those who surely will not. As if this could be known - as if it could be assessed without massively violating civil liberties and stigmatizing the mentally ill. Ban guns! Not just gun violence. Not just certain guns. Not just already-technically-illegal guns. All of them.

You can read the rest of her essay @
https://newrepublic.com/article/125498/its-time-ban-guns-yes-them

As a former member of the US military (Air Force, Army, and Navy), I'm not in agreement with her.

But if we want to ban all guns, we should amend the US Constitution as part of the process:

2nd Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As some people have suggested, the US population could be trained and regulated as militia (just like the Constitution envisioned) and used to combat extremism.

But obviously we're not going to do that.

Several years ago, the FBI decided to attack militia groups. The operation was called PATCON, and you can find information about it on the Internet should you care to do so. Instead of embracing and properly training US militia groups, the US government decided to treat them like criminals and get rid of them. You'd think the FBI would maybe honor the letter if not the spirit of the Constitution, but obviously they don't ... at least not in this regard.

And the US government as a whole now seems to treat not just militia, but all gun owners, church goers, Oath Keepers, and anyone who talks about and/or brandishes a copy of the Constitution as "extremists". So it's quite likely that someday soon, we'll be forced to turn in our firearms, board up our churches, and stop "clinging to guns and religion".

Some people have said, "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands". Sadly, I believe there are many people in our police and military forces who would be quite happy to do so.

And even if it never comes to that, most of our children and grandchildren eventually will come around to Ms. Bovy's point of view. They won't want guns, they won't buy guns, and they'll gladly turn in any guns which might have been lying around in their parent's homes when Mom and Dad passed away.

And that will be that.

On that day, or perhaps well before, please change the name of the publication Ms. Bovy writes for from "New Republic" to "New Empire" or "New Market State" or something more fitting of its outlook on the world. Anything but "republic". Thomas Jefferson thought the population of our republic should be well armed and willing to use force to keep our government in line. The Americans of today (or should we even call them Americans?) obviously no longer agree with him.

But Jefferson was just an evil slave owner, so why should anyone even care what he believed?