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

[jimmy the one]

174. pretzel logic take V

tortoise, changing the goalposts: This is complete and unmitigated bullshit. So women didn't have the right to a trial by jury, or not to incriminate themselves, or to peacefully assemble, to name a few? I don't care who your source is, that is an inane and untrue statement on its face.

You put words in my mouth. I did not contend women didn't have basic rights as per your above, I just countered your invalid contention that women had a right to keep & bear arms - when tortoise wrote this:

tortoise: - 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,..

To which I replied that women did not have a right to keep & bear arms, 2ndA applied only to predominantly white males. I did not say women were not citizens, I said they were considered 2nd class citizens as per the narrow definition of citizen as cited by webster's 1828 dictionary:

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.

womenhistory: When the new U.S. Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789, concern over individual liberties gave rise to the adoption of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments), but those rights did not pertain directly to women. However, state courts and legislatures began to vary in the interpretation of Person in the Constitution; in some jurisdictions narrowing the meaning to cover only people with property, only men or only white men.
Over the years, many claimants asserted that discrimination against women in voting, in property ownership, in occupational license and other matters was unconstitutional given the Constitution’s use of the term Person, but the all-male courts did not give this a fair hearing... http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2013/06/womens-rights-after-american-revolution.html

tortoise: Hell, women carried firearms quite often in the past without being jailed for it, especially in the so-called "Wild West." That was in many cases their only protection in a place where might often equaled right.

Of course women could carry firearms, even hunt & varmint plink, but they could not bear arms as per militia or in common defense, disallowed, with or without the militia clause dictate. So obviously the 2ndA did not apply to women either way, which says the right to keep & BEAR arms.

tortoise: Can you can come up with 1 historical reference to a woman not being allowed to carry firearms in a place where men could? If this statement of yours was correct, it should be easy to shower me with dozens of examples

I could with unlimited time provide many, but here is one, albeit ~50 years after the fact, so by then the country had split into the individual - militia dichotomy:

Aymette v. State, 21Tenn. 154, 156 (1840), In Aymette, the Tennessee Supreme Court construed the guarantee in Tennessee’s 1834 Constitution that ‘the free white men of this State, have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defense.’ Explaining that the provision was adopted with the same goals as the Federal Constitution’s Second Amendment, the court wrote: "The words ‘bear arms’ … have reference to their military use, and were not employed to mean wearing them about the person as part of the dress. As the object for which the right to keep and bear arms is secured, is of general and public nature, to be exercised by the people in a body, for their common defense, so the arms, the right to keep which is secured, are such as are usually employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military equipment."