[IgorPartola]

> Depending on how you parse the 2nd amendment's text you can reach different conclusions. That one comma could make a world of difference (historical details about gun ownership notwithstanding).

And herein lies the crux. We are staking up to 30k lives a year on a comma. Also, historical context is important in that when the second amendment was written, a group of people with muskets could take on a government force. That's not the case anymore. Police now drive tanks and come at you wearing body armor. I agree that if there was a full scale uprising, with say all the liberals arming themselves to the teeth and going up against Trump's administration in a rebellion, the police and military might be at best divided on the issue. But still, there is no well regulated militia that currently exists.

So my point is that why not re-write the damn thing, taking into account modern tech and modern way of life? The second amendment is held as nearly holy by some, but at one point it was just written down on paper by a few people. It's not exactly a stellar piece of legislature that is above all scrutiny and reproach.

[barsonme]

> We are staking up to 30k lives a year on a comma.

Well, 2/3 of those might be taken with other (possibly "worse," like suicide by cop or ODing) means. But, regardless. I understand what you mean.

> That's not the case anymore.

Sure it is, because ...

> Police now drive tanks and come at you wearing body armor.

... anybody can buy body armor. Hell, you can even own tanks in the US. And, like we've seen with the middle east, a guerilla group doesn't need body armor and tanks to stall and protect themselves from the world's largest super power.

> So my point is that why not re-write the damn thing, taking into account modern tech and modern way of life? The second amendment is held as nearly holy by some, but at one point it was just written down on paper by a few people. It's not exactly a stellar piece of legislature that is above all scrutiny and reproach.

To me, that sorta defeats the entire purpose of the US experiment. I believe a lot of our successes have to do with how seriously we take the constitution. Sure, we've trampled over it from time-to-time (e.g., slavery, women's suffrage, etc.) but a lot of the ideas that went into it are just as prevalent in the US as they were 240-some years ago. In fact, some of those ideas have helped the least fortunate and minority groups. Minor edits are one thing, but complete rewrites usually don't go as planned. And having 240-some years of history simply makes parts of it that much stronger. Unfortunately, humans are more complicated than software. :-)

Side note: I'm checking out your family fortune app. It should work fine for just one person, right?

[IgorPartola]

Well in at least several states wearing body armor is illegal. Same with driving a tank. The US has the largest and best equipped military in the world. And unlike the Middle East, I don’t think the US government would hesitate to act against any attempt to secede. Take for example Texas, a state which still believes it never joined the United States, and one that is heavily armed. Do you really think Texas could revel and secede?

As far as the constitution goes, I do think the rest of it is rather workable. Except the second amendment. It is the single most vaguely worded and most misapplied portion of it. It’s like if you wrote a piece of code that ran all the systems in all the hospitals in a country, and did a fantastic job of it, except it picked out randomly about 30k people a year and killed them because of an edge case and a bit of undefined behavior. Would you fix that bug or would you just point out that because overall the system is better than most we shouldn’t worry? We clearly set the precedent that the constitution can be too vague and in one case outright wrong. I say the second amendment is a bad amendment and has been for at least the past 50 years.

Yup the app will work great for just one person! Thanks for checking it out.

[barsonme]

> Do you really think Texas could revel and secede?

Not Texas alone, but the 2A doesn't exist so Texas can secede. And it wasn't was I was referring to, anyway. It exists, among other reasons, to ensure the US government won't become authoritarian. If the US did decide to consolidate power (à la the 1930s) it would be met with an armed resistance. Sure, there would be a power imbalance. But simply based on sheer numbers it'd be a nearly insurmountable task for the US government to quash it.

> It is the single most vaguely worded and most misapplied portion of it.

Okay, I'm just gonna be maybe a little too pedantic here, but that sounds too subjective to me. Plenty of folks might argue the right to privacy found in Roe v. Wade is more misapplied. And plenty of folks seem to think the 1st amendment gives, for example, racists too large of a platform and that platform has, both directly and indirectly, caused suffering to millions of minority groups.

> It’s like if you wrote a piece of code that ran all the systems in all the hospitals in a country...

That sort of presupposes the only way to fix the software is to scrap the entire thing. What if it were possible to add some bug fixes in other parts of the program? (Which is kinda what I've alluded to before—I think we could fix a lot of the 30,000 number without having to scrap the entire thing.)

> Yup the app will work great for just one person! Thanks for checking it out.

Sweet! I've been looking for a simple app that I don't have to connect my bank account to, unlike, say, Mint.

[IgorPartola]

> That sort of presupposes the only way to fix the software is to scrap the entire thing. What if it were possible to add some bug fixes in other parts of the program? (Which is kinda what I've alluded to before—I think we could fix a lot of the 30,000 number without having to scrap the entire thing.)

I am proposing scrapping this single sentence amendment. Or rather not scrapping it but adding a new amendment that is significantly more clear. Something like "Except where allowed by a law passed by congress, citizens shall not have the right to own firearms." Or something significantly longer and better. Then after that's passed, let's enact some specific laws that allow it.

And awesome. Let me know if you want me to shoot you a promo code for the ad-free version of the app.

[barsonme]

Well, seems like a difference of opinion, then. :-)

Sure! That'd be nice.