Actually rereading my own text I don't agree with it. I should have really stated more clearly that I know we aren't strict. We should be more strict, most definitely. I just don't know if that's enough in this country. We have a serious perception problem as well. I really need to watch West Wing. I keep getting reminded of that.
We do have a perception problem; I think that ties into the fact that this country was "built" on guns. We have a gun culture and a gun tradition that goes back to before we were a country. The Second Amendment is ... well, second. The founders considered guns the next most important thing after freedom of expression. And that made quite a bit of sense in 1789. Now it's beyond outdated -- it and some other anachronisms in the Constitution are seriously hurting the US.
Yes. Which is ... well, it's odd that this didn't occur to anyone when the Constitution was created. Like, we are setting up a sacred document that is relevant now but who knows what it will mean in 200 years. But at the time we needed something.
It was probably a simple oversight. After studying the Constitution so extensively, they seem up space for elasticity and change everywhere. Perhaps they didn't expect guns to change as they did. Mass production and global availability also weren't factors in their world.
I think I'm going to spend tomorrow taking an in-depth look at the Magna Carta and trying to find/not find parallels. EDIT: turns out the Brits have been able to largely slice and dice the MC to fit the times. But it took them several hundred years.
The Brits have a really cool system based mostly on precedent and intentionally don't have a central constitution. I took a class comparing their, Japan's, and our own constitutional systems. At first when hearing of Britain's system from an American perspective, it's incomprehensible. We've been entirely conditioned to believe that everything their system is based on will fail. We can't understand not having central documents without there being rampant corruption or solid written rules to dictate things. Every aspect of their politics is what we're told is wrong. I suppose it makes sense as it's what our ancestors intentionally left, but still being so opposed to it 200 years later is astounding.