This is a letter to the editor, which is supposedly written by a veteran--though I have no way to verify that, but this veteran is skeptical--where he's addressing a pro-gun letter from sometime in the past. In response, he has this to say:

I would like for the letter writer to say how comprehensive background checks, assault-style weapon bans and magazine capacity limits keep him from defending himself. Unless, of course, he is a convicted felon or an unauthorized immigrant being attacked by a squad of criminal mercenaries in a grocery store parking lot.

I can't see how any of those laws would prevent me from carrying any of my pistols and defending myself.

Of course, he then says not to cite the Second Amendment to him because he knows it, especially the whole "A well regulated militia" thing.

But the truth is that he doesn't.

First, "A well regulated militia" meant a properly functioning one. If it had meant otherwise, where are all the laws restricting what people could own? Despite Joe Biden's protestations, artillery was only restricted by affordability. If you had the money and wanted one, you could have it. Few things of the day were as destructive as artillery, after all, and there was no effort to keep them out of anyone's hands.

In fact, you can still buy those exact same cannons without even a background check.

Which means we should talk about background checks for a moment. The author seems to think that opposition to background checks means people who have an issue might not pass them. The thing is, I know I can pass them all day, every day. I'm not worried in the least.

That's not the point. 

The issue with universal background checks is that it sets the stage for a de facto gun registration. Each NICS check on a gun sale conducted creates a paper trail. That means paperwork exists on where most guns are in this country. That's information the government doesn't need.

Besides this, the onus shouldn't be on us to describe why a law shouldn't be passed. This is a constitutionally protected right, which even the letter writer acknowledges. That means one needs to defend the idea that it's not an infringement or that it'll actually do some good. The problem is that criminals aren't buying guns from law-abiding citizens, as a general thing. They're getting them via illegal sources and that's not likely to change.

So what will be accomplished by universal background checks beyond creating that de facto gun registration scheme?

Assault weapon bans, likewise, need to be justified as somehow falling outside of the scope of the Second Amendment, as are so-called high-capacity magazines. 

Of course, we've addressed all this in the past. That means one of two things are happening here. 

The first is that we've just not addressed it enough. We haven't found a way to get the counter arguments in front of enough people for them to recognize the issue with the gun control "solutions" being proposed. This is entirely possible and while it's easy to identify the issue, it's a different matter to solve it since most people still get their news from heavily biased, anti-gun sources masquerading as neutral news agencies.

The other side, though, is that we have and people are just too stupid to see through the BS.

I'd prefer the first simply because that can be addressed.

The second is a matter of where I'm OK with stupid hurting, but this flavor of stupid won't just hurt them. It'll hurt us.