Fewer guns mean fewer killings. We want a handgun ban.

[jimmy the one]

95. tortoise' twisted pretzel logic

Jimmy cited Justice Story (~1825): The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers;

tortoise replied, with malice & without being fully up to speed: Normally that would be 'nuff said - not all citizens were members of the militia, but all citizens were considered to have the right to keep and bear arms. However, I bow to the ability of my opponent to corkscrew this phrase into meaning that only members of the militia are citizens, and, like any good Jesuit-trained debater would do, ignore the Fallacy of Appeal to Wishful Thinking and move on to his most egregious example of pretzel logic.

One wonders how tortoise inserts 'jesuit trained debater' into this; Tortoise evidently does not realize that women were not considered full citizens circa 1800, and tortoise would have been wise, while he had the 1828 webster's online dictionary open, to have checked the word 'citizen':

webster's 1828 dictionary: http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/citizen
Citizen 5. In the United States, a person, native or naturalized, who has the privilege of exercising the elective franchise, or the qualifications which enable him to vote for rulers, and to purchase and hold real estate.

Women could not vote circa 1800, were considered second class citizens, and did not possess any right to keep & bear arms. Any women who wanted to usurp the family firearm against her husband's wishes, claiming her 'right to bear arms', might well get smacked across the face.

The Bill of Rights seemed to be written in broad language that excluded no one, but in fact, it was not intended to protect all the people - whole groups were left out. Women were second-class citizens, essentially the property of their husbands, unable even to vote until 1920, when the 19th Amendment... https://www.aclu.org/other/bill-rights-brief-history

Furthermore, of the approx 3 to 4 million americans living in the US circa 1790, regarding the presidential elections for george washinton: b) Less than 0.5% of the population voted: the 1790 Census counted a total United States population of 3.9 million with 3.2 million free population and 700 thousand slaves. Only 13,332 people voted out of that 3.9 million. http://mrkash.com/vote.html

That's what they considered full 'citizens', and in part what joseph story was referring to. Not women, not slaves, not children - the only other group not being part of 'the militia' would've been white american male landed gentry over 45. Also recall the avg life expectancy back then was ~50 years, so this group would've been a small proportion.

So take your own pretzel logic and crawl back into your tortoise shell.