ec, I'll post only this reply and then let other readers decide which arguments are more rational. No sense getting into yet another endless argument with one who is very accomplished in the art of dodging weaving twisting and eluding reasonablness.

First -- I have NEVER advocated eliminating all guns. I DO NOT advocate disarming law abiding citizens.

Second -- But we have some very serious problems with laws as they now stand. So I DO advocate background checks on ALL people who want to buy guns. That includes so called "private purchases." There should also be a national database tracking purchases of guns and ammunition. That might allow us to spot purchases of large quantities, such as the 6000 rounds allegedly bought by the Colorado theater shooter. If it appears that someone is collecting an arsenal, then they could be checked out before they use it. That would be the same sort of thing now in place for purchases of such things as ammonium nitrate for bomb making.

Third -- We must have some way for mental health providers to report any clients who present concerns. This will mean overhauling some of our privacy laws to allow that. We also need a national mental health database of some kind. But this will be an extremely limited solution because many people who have been involved in shootings have never been seen by a mental health provider. There probably also needs to be a way for ordinary persons to report a neighbor or acquaintance who presents signs of instability.

Fourth -- As it now stands, there are countless individuals who now possess weapons legally but who, for one reason or another, should not. They have not been convicted of a felony. (The folks who shot up those signs would be guilty only of a misdemeanor if they were caught. But do the bullets that passed through those signs present a danger to others who might be downrange in the vicinity?) Police officers will tell you of their frustration when they find an active gang member in possession, but cannot take the weapon away from them because they are not felons -- yet. They may have a long string of convictions for misdemeanors, some involving violence, but because they have not been convicted of anything more than a misdemeanor, they may legally possess firearms. The same holds true of individuals involved in domestic violence. In almost every case in which a gun was used in a case of domestic violence, the shooter had a long record of misdemeanors but no felony until it was too late for his victim(s).

Fifth -- I DO support sensible restrictions on weaponry and who may possess it. I don't know exactly what those restrictions need to be, but there do need to be restrictions.

Sixth -- I have long advocated that anyone possessing a gun should be required to take some kinds of well planned safety training. Twice, I came home from flying with bullet holes in my aircraft. Both times back in Ohio and both times while on the downwind leg of a landing apparently from people with rifles who just took a pot-shot at the plane as it flew over. Once in Paria Canyon I was pinned down along with the Scout troop I was leading when some folks began just shooting for fun. We were crouched down behind rocks as bullets zinged over us and impacted just a few feet away. We could hear the rifles from a long distance away down the canyon. Far enough that our shouts were apparently not heard by the shooters. They fired for about fifteen minutes. It was a very interesting experience.

Seventh -- America is a nation of mostly sensible people. One problem is that in the last several years, we have allowed our country to be hijacked by some extremists who are definitely not sensible. It's time now for sensible folks to stand up and demand to be heard. Solving this problem will require wisdom and that people at both ends of the extremes soften up a bit and work with those in the middle to find answers to an extremely tough problem. I submit that the NRA and others like them are not at all sensible, certainly possess little, if any, wisdom and that anyone who advocates as they do is joining them in insanity and outright stupidity.

This is an enormous challenge. But it's one that must be confronted and solved. Extremism will not help in any way.

Lee, I agree on all points.

Here we go again. I don't agree on all points.

You don't get to choose for me...

it says "shall not be infringed"

No AWB.

No national registry.

No magazine limitation

If you want to change the amendment, use the process established in the constitution please.

Mike G it says "well regulated" too

The Supreme Court has plainly stated that Congress can regulate guns.

"If you want to change the amendment, use the process established in the constitution please."

That might be what has to happen. If enough Americans feel it is necessary, it can be done.

I see this has turned into another general Second Amendment—guns in parks discussion. I have a narrower observation. It baffles me that the Nat'l Parks & Conservation Ass'n would choose to interject itself in the controversial question whether assault rifles, as they're commonly termed, should be banned under Sen. Feinstein's legislation. Whether that ban passes or not would seem to have nothing to do with the national park system. This strikes me as the ideological equivalent of, to offer a hypothetical example, the Int'l Mountain Bicycling Ass'n (IMBA) opposing fracking because it could impact a trail somewhere in Pennsylvania or New York. I sure hope IMBA never does anything that foolish.

In sum, and with no pun intended, NPCA's action seems to be not only a self-inflicted wound by the NPCA, but one inflicted without even the hope of some potential benefit.

Let me just add a couple of more general points. Everyone who wants to be able to continue to comment intelligently on guns in national parks should, at some point, read Justice Scalia's excellent and highly persuasive majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. That'll bring about a clarification of what rights the Second Amendment guarantees. In brief, however, Heller held that (1) "we find that [it] guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation" (p. 19), an "individual right unconnected with militia service" and "necessary for self-defense" (p. 33); but (2) "[o]f course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment’s right of free speech was not." (P. 22.) Accordingly, the court decided as follows:

As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster. (Pp. 56-57, fn. omitted.)

But this rule is subject to broad and important limitations:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. [Citations.] For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. [Citations.] Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be
taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those
“in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.” [Citations.]

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely
detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the
protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

It's against that legal background that debates over gun ownership have to take place. You have an individual right to possess a gun for purposes of self-defense, but not just any gun and not in every place and at every time of your choosing. The Second Amendment's guarantee is at its strongest in your home and in certain other places it gives you no right to carry a weapon at all. That's the law as handed down by the Supreme Court in 2008 in the Heller decision.

imtnbke - thank you for a well considered post.