What's the chance of your home catching fire and burning to the ground? Do you own a fire extinguisher and fire alarms? You probably have auto, health, and life insurance just in case too?

Why not add the ability to at least try and defend yourself to that list? You'll spend much more on the various "in case shit happens" inurances in a year, than you'll ever spend on gun ownership, unless of course it becomes a hobby in addition to self defense.

It doesn't say the "right of the State to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" does it? How can the people defend themselves from a tyrannical government if they have to have permission from the government to have weapons? Can a State government not be tyrannical? What if the Fed is oppressing the people and the state and local governments agree with the Fed? What do the people do then?

No the SA makes it clear that a state has the right to keep a well regulated militia and the people have the right to keep and bear arms.

I own several guns and am generally opposed to gun control. That said, how can I defend myself from the government even with my guns? They have, like, tanks and stuff. Not to mention planes, missile, bombs, artillery, etc. Not much me and my bolt action '06 or Marlin 30-30 can do against that kind of firepower. Just sayin...

Also, the second amendment should get fleshed out considerably this summer when Heller comes down. The court is quite conservative right now so that may make for a more pro-gun interpretation.

Your statements seem to indicate that to you it doesn't mean what it says, it means what you want it to mean. You have to read it in the context of the time in which it was written.

The whole point of a militia being "necessary to the security of a free State" was that back then, it could be days or maybe even weeks before a state even got the word to Washington that somebody was invading or otherwise making trouble, and days or weeks after that before the Feds could send the Army to help. That's why they needed a militia to begin with.

If you have a logical basis for what you're arguing, let's hear it.

So if the government does something so radical that YOU are up in arms about it, don't you think a lot of people will be? Who drives those tanks, loads those bombs, operates that artillery. If you find yourself alone rising up against a tyrannical government then something went wrong with your plan. If you are in the Military, are you going to drive a tank against your parents, brother, sister, cousins? If there was a movement large enough in this country the government would possibly be crippled for lack of personnel to operate all the machinery, and many would operate it on the other sides behalf. You could have generals and entire army brigades etc. "rising up" on the side of one belief or another. That is what a civil war/revolution is right?

How can it not mean what it says? Once again, I highly doubt that when forming the blueprint for our country the drafters of the Constitution only meant it to apply for a few years or so.

See Blue, you doing the same thing that you are accusing me of doing. If you believe the SA should be taken in context with the time it was written then the entire Constitution should too.

Read many portions of the Constitution and you could argue that the "People" haven't been given any specific rights based on interpretation, or that there was "reason at the time" for such things but they no longer apply today. Do we really want to start doing that?

I'm not accusing you of anything, just saying what it means to me when I read it. The truth is we'll never know what they really meant because it's worded in a way that's open to multiple interpretations.

True, but to add fuel to the fire, here is the original text submitted to Congress by James Maddison for the SA:

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

This is much clearer to me and shows that at least Maddison wanted to ensure the peoples right to bear arms in addition to state militias etc. Why it got re-worded, who knows.

Maybe it got reworked because they intended for it only to apply to "well-regulated militias" and not to individuals.

Same reason the First Amendment got re-worded. Politics.

Original wording of the First: "The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed."

"Quite conservative".

You have to be shitting with a comment like that.

Maybe the very liberal ABA would make that claim, but it is not true.

The court has 4 who could be considered conservative, 4 who could be considered on the left, and one who could go either way on almost any issue.

That is not, "quite conservative".

Don't believe the hype... as they say.

The Democrats haven't given up gun control.

They have only given up talking about it openly in campaigns.

Yes, because no uprising in the history of man has ever held its own using small arms and improvised weaponry against a larger, more organized army with superior firepower.

Except for (in the last hundred or so years):

--The Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in WWI
--The East Africa Campaign, WWI
--Numerous factions involved in the Russian Civil War
--Countless local guerrilla factions in WWII, both theaters
--Vietnamese National Army (against France)
--Viet Cong (against the US)
--Zapata's Army
--Afghani "Mujahedeen"
--Israeli Guerrilla Forces (against Britain)
--Nepalese Maoists
--Cuban Revolution
--Zimbabwean ZANU and ZAPU
--Algerian NLF
--Mozambican RENAMO

And I haven't even mentioned lots more in the Middle East, and scads of factions in South America. Wait...Indonesia, Angola, Eritrea, Chinese Communists, the IRA...

...do you see where I'm going with this?

In the incredibly odd chance we get some whack-job bullshit happen in government, and by some crazy chain of events the dumbasses in government put a hold on the Constitution or go for some power grab, and by another crazy turn of events, the military and police don't revolt, and we actually have to fight our own in the streets, I'd be perfectly happy to have Joe Sixpack and his Remington 30-06 backing me up.

Point taken, but I will point out that the US military has an overwhelming technology and firepower advantage relative to the militaries you mentioned. But like I said, point taken and I would agree there's an advantage to an armed population (to an extent.) I could contribute 4 rifles, 1 shotgun, 1 pistol and 1 muzzleloader - I can't aim worth a shit with the pistol, though.

Argue semantics all you want, but relative to the last 50 this is a conservative court.

Don't worry, pipe bombs are easy enough to make

Maybe you consider it semantics, but in the last 50 years the court has been too far to the left. This court is more balanced I guess you can say.

Compared to some of the decisions in the past 50 years, it's not very hard for any court to be considered conservative. Especially by modern legal circles like the ABA which tacks leftward.

We'll see exactly how "conservative" this court is with some of the cases on the docket this year. The Heller case should be interesting.

I find it interesting that the Bush administration is in favor of the DC handgun ban, yet in a rare case, Dick Cheney the VP filed a brief with some Senators taking the side of the circuit court in overturning the DC ban. Cheney is going against Bush and the administration (Justice Dept).

That was a good post Shahram. You made good points.

However in some of those conflicts you mentioned, the rebels had some help with armaments from foreign governments intervening in the conflicts. But the point is still valid nonetheless.

Government gun-grabbing brings up some interesting scenarios. If the federal government were to outlaw private gun ownership let's say... via Supreme Court mandate, there runs the possibility that some state governments could openly declare defiance. How the federal government would handle such a conflict with states is unclear. How states would react to whatever the federal government does is also unclear.

It's possible that depending on who sits in the White House, the Executive Branch could also defy such a Supreme Court decision.

That is why gun grabbing legislation comes a little piece at a time. You never know where the gun grabbing is going to come from.

I also suspect many in the US armed forces would never wage war against their own citizens over a 2nd Amendment rebellion and a total gun grab by the federal government. Some will, but most or many will not.

If the Supreme Court were to do that...I think you'd see one of the fastest enacted Amendments in History - one that would be much more clear then the current 2nd.

That's odd.

Our Republican Senator, John Warner, has taken the position that it should be left up to DC and home rule, not the federal government.

You would see such a movement begin.

But.... Since more than half of the states are controlled by Democrats, you probably wouldn't get such an amendment. It would require a lot of Democrat states to go along too and I wouldn't put much money on that happening. It's remotely possible, but most Democrats would cry "success" and welcome such a ruling.

Don't kid yourself. The party is very far to the left these days. Probably a lot farther than you are willing to admit or maybe even realize.

DC is a federal city.

John Warner is a political coward and a major asshole. He should have been gone many years ago.

There was a shooting tonight at Seton Hall University in NJ.

A non-student came on campus with a gun and shot himself. That's all that is known so far.

Seton Hall is a "no gun zone".

I disagree. I think you'd easily get the number of states needed. Granted, it would depend on the wording of the amendment.