(If) “A well regulated militia (is) necessary to the security of a free State, (then) the right of the people to keep and bear arms (as part of that militia) shall not be infringed.
The immediate response will be that the 2nd Amendment does not include the parenthetical phrase and that objection is correct; the Amendment also does not exclude the logical extension of the argument and arguably makes much more sense if it is stipulated. Justice Scalia in his opinion for the majority in District of Columbia vs. Heller, noted that 2nd Amendment rights, like other rights, are not unlimited, specifically mentioning “conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
On that basis, Congressional hesitation to enact legislation restricting the sale of high-capacity magazines and high velocity military style ammunition is clearly specious and serves to highlight the impact of the gun lobby on legislative decision making. (If) a piece of ammunition is designed specifically for the damaging of tissue (human or otherwise), (then) it has no value in either target shooting or hunting and there is no reason not to restrict civilian access to such. Similarly, if the purpose of possessing a weapon is the sport of target shooting or hunting and such sports are, at least in part, a test or demonstration of skill, there is no reason for a weapon to be loaded with more than 10 rounds of any ammunition. These are simple and basic actions that, while they won’t end mass murders or even individual killings, will make them more difficult to execute.
Similar limits on the age at which someone can first purchase a weapon, training qualifications for the possession and use of firearms, and a criminal and psychological background check prior to licensing such a purchase are merely common sense, a commodity in dangerously short supply in and around Washington, DC and many state capitals. Enforcement of such limits is very straightforward and would require only the will on the part of government officials who, in many cases, seem to have forgotten that their responsibilities include the welfare of all of their constituents, not just those with large bank accounts and loud media voices.