Yserb > It’s not a slippery slope to mandating limits on consumer ownership .. You’re just restating the “What if the government goes bad?”
It just happens that gun ownership in the population might prevent a dictatorship, while owning lighters and fireworks are less useful.
Just look at current Europe – many countries convinced themselves that there is no international danger and if they buy gas from former bullies everything will be alright… Very knowledgeable people made a mistake … Easy to imagine a similar thing happening inside the country…. electing a bad-meaning President and Congress at the same time and Supreme Court going along, possibly intimidated. Why not to value a mass of gun owners as last resort? It might be argued l’hathila that there are better and safer mechanisms (are there?_) but b’dieved – as history of this country was based on local communities protecting themselves – it is a useful thing to have.