There will always be peckerheads and they aren’t consulting my conservative ass either. They also are not shooting at the government. In fact they aren’t shooting anyone. They are just hanging out and looking silly.

The idea of a free state is what the majority perceives, not what they perceive. The guns are there to keep the government honest.

To say there is no way to win the argument is not an absolute declaration. It is simply based on the fact that the amendment is too ambiguous to interpret for either side and both side are dug in.

If support for change gets strong enough change will happen, not based on winning an argument, but based on popular support. Until the popular support is there all you will have is jawboning.

And who gets to decide when a state is no longer free? Or just what should be done about it? These peckerhead cammie wearing and assault rifle toting patriots aren’t consulting my young liberal ass. Their idea of a free state is one without any people like me in it.

In the meantime, innocent people keep on dying. And every day it gets worse, because the NRA spends millions creating and exploiting paranoia in order to increase the sales and profits of a brutal and greedy industry by catering to hatred, ignorance and fear.

If “there was no way to win by argument” there wouldn’t be one.

It is too ambiguous. There is no way to win by argument. The only answer for those who favor tight control is to amend or change it by decree, which would be unconstitutional.

Some changes may occur, it depends on who wears down who. I a great enough majority support gun control, there will be gun control, by hook or crook.

Until then maybe it’s best to wait until things calm down enough to have a reasonable discussion.

“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.”

Its the security of the STATE that is being guaranteed, not that of the citizens.

That initial clause tells you exactly why that amendment is there, it isn’t necessary to speculate on the state of mind of the founders–not that it matters. The law depends on what they wrote, not what we believe they might have been thinking. Any ambiguity in the wording is probably deliberate.

Muzzle loading firearms, particularly muskets, were not as suitable for criminal activity or general mayhem as modern repeating cartridge weapons, they required considerable skill to use, were extremely expensive, and could only be fired once a minute, when it wasn’t raining. They made military sense only when used in volley fire by organized troops, even if they were irregular militias.

The “fight the Fed” interpretation is a redneck fantasy arising primarily from the infantile delusions of rural Southerners terrified the freed slaves are coming back to get their revenge.

Recent Supreme Court decisions have INTERPRETED the second amendment as a guarantee that all citizens have the right to own weapons. This is perfectly legitimate, that’s why we have a Supreme Court, to interpret the law when there is controversy or disagreement about it. I can accept that, even though I don’t agree with that interpretation, because it is the result of the constitutional process, which I am pledged to support.

But spare me the Minuteman crap. I know why I own guns, and shooting government tyrants is not the reason. And unlike Judge Napolitano, I don’t claim to possess any time-traveling telepathy that allows me to pontificate on what the founders meant to say.

In the meantime, thank goodness we’ve got an abundant supply of innocent bystanders. I’d hate to see us run out.