People can get felonies for completely non violent crimes like tax evasion, or distilling liquors without a permit, while violent crimes like assault, or intimidation with a weapon can be classified as a misdemeanor. Therefore people who commit violent misdemeanor crimes are eligible to be gun owners, but folks who wouldn't hurt a fly can't have one because of a debacle with the IRS or ATF because they were making moonshine or cheated on their taxes.

Unfortunately, the way we define crimes now-a-days can lead to someone with a lot of weed to never being able to have a gun again... that is NOT what our Founding Fathers wanted (hell, they had a shit load more weed than any of us these days).

If convicted rapists and murderers were the type of felons who couldn't buy guns, than I would totally be fine with this (as long as it's at a State level). Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Federal government should not be making gun control for all the States to follow. If a State believes that ex-cons should not be allowed to get a weapon, than they shall make a law accordingly. but it's unconstitutional that a man who was video-taping a cop should never be able to defend himself (and NOT die) just because the laws of that state would make him a felon.

I completely support a repeal of ALL restrictions on the right to own firearms. First there is a constitutional perspective, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Now, I wish it could be as clean cut as this, but sadly there are several misinterpretations of this seemingly straightforward amendment. The most prominent being that, this is specifically reserved for the National Guard. But by that interpretation, it seems a little redundant to add this when the National Guard would be given arms, with or without a specific amendment. Furthermore, the Constitution was written to RESTRICT the federal government, not give it power to enslave its citizens. This interpretation would seem just a tad contradictory to what the Founders had in mind. From a logical perspective, more guns appears to mean less crime. In switzerland for instance (I realize this is an exhausted argument, but that does not at all take away from its merits) everyone is required to serve in the military and therefore knows how to wield a weapon. They have very low crime rates, consequently. Also, those who claim gun crimes go down with the complete ban of guns, should look at the violent crimes with knives. Ireland recently banned guns and with that, gun crime plummeted. A win for the gun control lobby, no? But what skyrocketed? Ah yes, violent crimes involving a knife. Should we then ban knives? oh wait you could kill someone with a bat, or a rock, or other blunt/sharp, objects. Should we just ban everything that could possibly kill someone? Oh wait a minute, you could kill someone with your bare hands, should we be forced to cut them off? I realize is an example of reductio ad absurdum, but my point still remains, guns are not the source of violence, they are a mere instrument of violence. the source of violence is within the individual. Instead of trying to reduce violence by placing restrictions on guns, we should try to find out why are we violent to begin with? What can we do to calm our violent urges? Can anything be done at all? If the answer to that last question is in the negative, then gun restrictions still make no sense. For one thing, all that would be accomplished would be the disarming of peaceful, law-abiding citizens. (This has been historically used by repressive regimes, i.e, Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc. but thats another argument) Considering that criminals don't obey the law in the first place, how can we expect to lower crime by making new laws? When you make a new law or punishable offense, you are actually increasing crime rates, because there are new crimes to be convicted for.

I say repeal the ban on full autos, sawed off shotguns, M203's, grenades, and such.