The American gun-control forces stand entirely on emotion rather than judicial precedent when discussing gun legislation. The two largest ways in which the left gets the gun question wrong is in understanding the weapons themselves and the legal tradition that is the Second Amendment.
I don’t want to explain how these weapons work and how there is no real “assault” rifle (you can come talk to me any time about that). Rather, I would like to explain the court cases on which our current understanding of the Second Amendment is founded.
There have been many landmark court cases in our generation. You may be familiar with Oberfell v. Hodges (2015), which ultimately gave Supreme Court approval to gay marriage. However, you may not be familiar with District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), which found that individuals have the right to keep weapons outside of the militia setting. McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) further reinforced Heller by finding that the right to a weapon was fundamental, and any attempt to deny a person a weapon required due process.
Even more recently and importantly, in Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016) the Supreme Court reinforced that any type of bearable weapon was protected under the Second Amendment. Caetano is interesting because the individual party was trying to carry a stun gun to defend herself from an abusive partner. The state of Massachusetts argued that the founders weren’t thinking of stun guns when writing the Second Amendment. The Court strongly dissented with that view, stating, “This reasoning (that stun guns were not on the mind of the founders) defies our decision in Heller, which rejected as ‘bordering on the frivolous’ the argument ‘that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.’ 554 U. S., at 582. The decision below also does a grave disservice to vulnerable individuals like Caetano who must defend themselves because the State will not.”
The court is clear. Individuals have the right to keep (Heller) and bear (McDonald) modern weapons (Caetano). Unfortunately for those who would like to see a gun ban, it is simply not going to happen. However, there is a conversation to be had about certain gun control measures which fall within the current definitions of the Second Amendment.