shasta my point about not having a NATIONAL ARMY was meant as we did not have a full fledged military force during peace time to carry out the orders of CONGRESS as in the way we do today.
The task of organizing the U.S. Army commenced in 1775. In the first one hundred years of its existence, the United States Army was maintained as a small peacetime force to man permanent forts and perform other non-wartime duties such as engineering and construction works. During times of war, the U.S. Army was augmented by the much larger United States Volunteers which were raised independently by various state governments. States also maintained full-time militias which could also be called into the service of the army.
The numbers that comprised the force was small and took time to organize and fit the soldiers with proper weapons and munitions to carry out orders.. WHICH is why the second amendment was put into place. SO that when the volunteers were called upon they already were self sustaining in weapons and munitions, to a point. The founding fathers did not foresee the advancements in the arms race we would have made today nor the issues we face today.. WHat they did foresee was a government trying to enforce unconstitutional laws which is a caveat to the second amendment, TO protect oneself from domestic threats and threats from the government. Such as the ones we face today.
I read my last statement and I do not see where I said it had anything to do with hunting or the like. But by them enforcing these laws it will inter fear with your given right to hunt, or to participate in gun sporting events.
Also I still stand behind my point about not needing to achieve a good sight picture to engage a threat with a shot gun. Point being you can successfully engage the target from the hip and put rounds on target without shouldering the weapon system. And for the average person who is not trained to accurately engage targets in a rapid manner. Which is the case most civilians who are faced with such an instance find themselves in. With a shot gun you can point and pull the trigger from the hip and have a 90% success rate of killing the threat. less than .01 of the american populace has ever found themselves in an situation to where they have to engage a human threat.. The shotgun is an area weapon unlike the m4 or handgun. It takes a lot of stress off the shooter to achieve a good sight picture when engaging a target. Which is why I say the shotgun is the best weapon system for the average person for defense.
ASSAULT WEAPON refers to different types of firearms and weapons, and is a term that has differing meanings and usages.
In discussions about gun laws and gun politics in the United States, an assault weapon is most commonly defined as a semi-automatic firearm possessing certain ergonomic or construction features similar to those of military firearms. Semi-automatic firearms fire one bullet (round) each time the trigger is pulled; the spent cartridge case is ejected and another cartridge is loaded into the chamber, without requiring the manual operation of a bolt handle, a lever, or a sliding handgrip. An assault weapon has a detachable magazine, in conjunction with one, two, or more other features such as a pistol grip, a folding or collapsing stock, a flash suppressor, or a bayonet lug.[1] Most assault weapons are rifles, but pistols or shotguns may also fall under the definition(s) or be specified by name.
The exact definition of the term in this context varies among each of the various jurisdictions limiting or prohibiting assault weapon manufacture, importation, sale, or possession, and legislative attempts are often made to change the definitions. Governing and defining laws include the now-expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban,[2] as well as state and local laws often derived from or including definitions verbatim from the expired Federal Law.
Whether or not assault weapons should be legally restricted more than other firearms, how they should be defined, and even whether or not the term "assault weapon" should be used at all, are questions subject to considerable debate.[3][4][5][6][7] As a political and legal term, it is highly controversial. Critics have asserted that the term is a media invention,[8] or a term that was intended by gun control activists to foster confusion with the public over differences between fully automatic and semi-automatic firearms.[9]
The term "assault weapon" is sometimes conflated with the term "assault rifle". An assault rifle is a military rifle capable of selective fire originally intended to replace other small arms or crew-served weapons during a military assault. This may include fully automatic fire, where multiple rounds are fired continuously when the trigger is pulled and held, and/or burst fire, where a burst of several rounds are fired when the trigger is pulled once.[10] In the United States, fully automatic firearms are heavily restricted and regulated by federal laws such as the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, as well as state and local laws.
The term "assault weapon" is also used to refer to various weapons that are used by the military for offensive operations in battle. Many of these military assault weapons are far more powerful than conventional firearms or small arms, such as portable rocket launchers used for anti-tank and bunker destruction purposes and various other weapons using flammable munitions and/or explosives.
