I would like to be able to carry an expandable baton. In certain circumstances I would like to have the option to use a less than lethal, but effective, instrument in self defense or in defense of another. If someone attacks me, I cannot crack him in the knee with a baton. That would be illegal, and I would be arrested for doing so. I have to pull out my 44 magnum and blast him in order to avoid arrest, prosecution and imprisonment.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law prohibiting stun guns. See:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/1 ... 8_aplc.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; after quoting Heller:
“the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding[.]”
Concurring, Justice Alito had this to say:
"[T]he right to bear other weapons is “no answer” to a ban on the possession of protected arms. Heller, 554 U. S., at 629. Moreover, a weapon is an effective means of self-defense only if one is prepared to use it, and it is presumptuous to tell Caetano she should have been ready to shoot the father of her two young children if she wanted to protect herself. Courts should not be in the business of demanding that citizens use more force for self-defense than they are comfortable wielding. ¶ Countless people may have reservations about using deadly force, whether for moral, religious, or emotional reasons—or simply out of fear of killing the wrong person. See Brief for Arming Women Against Rape & Endangerment as Amicus Curiae 4–5. “Self-defense,” however, “is a basic right.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767. I am not prepared to say that a State may force an individual to choose between exercising that right and following her conscience, at least where both can be accommodated by a weapon already in widespread use across the Nation."