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Comment by ClassyJacket | Hacker News Reader

I'm consistently amazed by how often I see Americans brag about their "right" to shoot up a school. As someone from another country it's such an absurd thing to see that it still surprises me.

Such a crazy cognitive dissonance. What about your right to have a bomb? Or a biological weapon?

Such an actively harmful hill to die on.

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I've often wondered how "the right to keep and bear arms" can be abridged for, e.g. a shoulder-launched surface-air missile, but not for a hand gun or rifle. Surely both are "arms" within the meaning understood at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified.

US courts have tried to get around this by finding a right to self defense, and finding that preventing someone from carrying a handgun infringes this right, but preventing them from carrying a missile does not. However this makes no sense: if someone points a gun at you then its already too late to pull your own gun out and shoot them, so guns are only useful for self defense against criminals who don't have guns.

Its true that there are some extremely narrow circumstances in which a legal gun carried by a bystander can be used to stop a gun crime, but only in a tiny fraction of cases.

One should be able to own & buy a shoulder launched missile. In fact you can (at least a bazooka; non-guided). It's destructive device, and requires a $200 tax stamp. It's perfectly legal to own hand grenades too.

You should report whoever brags about _their right to shoot up a school._ to your local law enforcement.

Unless that's disingenuous of what they actually "brag" about. Are they just bragging about having freedom to protect themselves? Freedom to own an inanimate object?

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