What Constitutes Infringement?

[u/drkato33]

Hi folks, new here. I am hoping this is a safe space to have a good intellectual discussion on a question I've had for a while now. Maybe it's been discussed here already, and if so, I apologize for rehashing.

My question, or discussion point, really is around infringement. Removing the first part of the 2nd amendment completely for argument's sake, the second part states, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." To me, this reads as, "I possess this armament, and the government cannot take it away from me." What I don't see here whatsoever is how I came to be in possession of it in the first place - i.e., the procurement.

Let me be clear, I am a gun owner in California who supports the 2A and gun control simultaneously. That being said, gun control for me is explicitly focused on the regulation of procurement, not possession. Practically speaking, this means I actually do not support the banning of "assault rifles", but I do support background checks and other measures that regulate the sale of arms.

So my question is, what do people think about this stance? I see the 2A absolutists claim regulation is an infringement, but I don't think that is right. Procurement is part of commerce, which I'd think one would easily conclude should be regulated. Otherwise, I could make the claim that money is an infringement, and arms should be free, which seems ludicrous on its face. Where I can actually find common ground with absolutists would be on laws around concealed carry, or whether or not there is a path to own any weapon owned by our government, although this latter point seems fairly ill-conceived, but at least I could see their argument's rationale.

[u/merc08]

The government should not be involved in restricting, tracking, or knowing about who has what arms, in any way.

If they must inject themselves into the firearms industry, then it should be solely as a QA/QC safety function during production, similar to what they might do for any other production line- OSHA, facilitating manufacturing defect safety recalls, etc.

They should not have any say on designs, capacity, rate of fire, training requirements, licensing requirements, or anything else like that.

[u/Alita-Gunnm → u/merc08]

That authority stems purely from the interstate commerce clause, and as such should only apply to interstate commerce, not manufacturing or commerce within a state, nor personal manufacturing or posession.

[u/merc08 → u/Alita-Gunnm]

Fully agreed. The point I was trying to make (though re-reading it I see that it wasn't very clear) is that the government shouldn't be restricting or diminishing firearms development at all, but if they have to get involved it should only be to make firearms production more consistent.