Maybe this is why the insurgents are so well armed?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=5adc996871893525&hp&ex=1162184400&partner=homepage

We haven't been able to do anything else, but we've brought them at least half of the Second Amendment.  

It's such a gun-bearing paradise that maybe the NRA should re-locate its headquarters there.  I'm sure they'll soon establish the other 9 1/2 amendments of the Bill of Rights, thus proving that the right to guns is crucial to every other right.

the arrogant trash can't run their own lives but they sure know how to run everyone else's. You are correct though "the right to guns is crucial to every other right." A philosophy recognized by everyone except "head in ass liberals."

Your GOP butt buddies are doing such a wonderful job of pacifying towelheads, controlling floods, corporate and political fraud and bribery, and catching perverts.

Buy all the guns you want.  I know goddamn well you don't know how to use them.  If you ever piss anybody off, it'll take about 10 minutes to disarm you.

It's written strangely, and doesn't matter in the end, anyway.

I suspect it was probably tucked in there as an enforcement provision, like you see in many treaties.  Clearly it allows states to maintain their own militia, and the mechanism of that might well be up to the states.

The odd thing is of course that it's rarely been directly disputed, and never resolved, like every other provision has.  IOW, it never really mattered to anybody.   Well, until the NRA discovered that they could make tons of money off it a few years ago.

The "self-defense" argument you hear is pure bullshit.  The constitution only bound the Federal govt.  Self-defense is always a matter of substantive local criminal law, just about the last thing the constitution is aimed at.

Here's one major fallacy in the common position.  All the NRA types know - they just know in their lower colon - that "arms" are small arms, ie the ones they have.  

Is that written in there somewhere?  Like, "keep and bear arms no more than .45 caliber and 3500 fps muzzle velocity, excepting crew-served weapons"?

Of course not, but they just know it's there, because they know they'd look ridiculous if they argued that it guaranteed their right to Browning M2s.  

Well, they are ridiculous.   There's no distinction, and if the 2nd amendment is for the purpose of holding off the Feds, revenoors or whatever, then how can you deny a man the right to AA or AT cannon and missiles?   I personally like the old Soviet D-30, but that's just my experience.

This is why the NRA never sets up a test case.   1st, there's no indication they'd win.  2nd, the best they could win would still defeat them, BECAUSE there's no constitutional provision that is absolute.  Even free speech is limited; and firearms have always been regarded as one of those inherently dangerous issues like alcohol, that may be reasonably subject to close regulation.

Eg, what person might not be reasonably concerned about a crazy neighbor with a dozen AKs in his garage?   Or why he might want that M2 or D-30?  How often does some moron hunter hit some hunting buddy, because he doesn't know to look where he's shooting?  

(Sorry guys, but I don't buy BS about accidents when you're holding a weapon.  If you pick up a weapon, you are responsible for where you point it, I don't care if the fog or dark is so complete that you can't see your hand in front of your face; and if you are too stupid to know that, or too feckless to take responsibility, then you're too immature to be trusted with a weapon.)

So you know, if a county wants to say that you can keep and bear arms, but you're limited to a single matchlock pistol, and have to show proficiency on a specific day of the week under the supervision of redcoats in powdered wigs, then I can't say that is outside administrative deference.  After all, I wouldn't want judges to be making law.

So it's a tempest in a teapot.  And all of us with a half a brain know that it's not ammunition that keeps the Feds off, it's money.  

so many words, and not a single mention of tv evangelists?

we can see you're full of ideas.  

Are you feeling left out?  Pissed off that George is delaying the 2nd coming?  Resentful that somebody knows how to speak English?

These are all normal Republican reactions.  All you have to do is accept that Republicanism is a disease that nearly one third of all 'muricans suffer from, that proper medication can usually relieve.

Incredibly complex & dramatic plot that makes no difference in the end.

My simple comment and question was based on the observation of FACTS, but then I forget that you  feel free to make up your own.

I think I discovered today, just where that trait comes from.

be sure to let us know

Guns are going to preserve your rights against a government with a standing army and nuclear weapons.  

I'm not against the second amendent, I just think that it all should be applied.  Where's the well-regulated part of our consumer driven "militias?"

Guns are going to preserve your rights against a government with a standing army and nuclear weapons.  

I'm not against the second amendent, I just think that it all should be applied.  Where's the well-regulated part of our consumer driven "militias?"

they're conscientious objectors.   Their consciences won't let them do dirty work for shitty pay that could involve getting shot.

They just like to stay home and fondle weapons and dream of threatening people.

Ya want them to vote Democrat?  Fire up the draft.

In a rush to obtain an executive branch the founding fathers were willing to pass a constitution that had no provisions for the protection of individual liberties.  The founders greatest concerns were the “excesses of democracy.”

Only the actions of a few “liberal minded men” were able to wrangle protections in the form of amendments during the ratification process of the U.S. Constitution.

The lesson we seem to forget is:  Beware of the powers of government.

that it was more the representatives of the states that saw the BoR as protection for the states, ie the people who ran them, against the Feds.  This was a time that only landowners voted, and they didn't worry too much about people without property.

And it's not just the Feds.  Most govt, and often the most oppressive, flies under the radar - your county supervisors, the school districts, the mosquito control district, the condo assn, etc etc; and for that matter, lots of business institutions can be pretty oppressive - many of them are hooked very closely to govt.

I think it's more about having some balance and alternatives.   Americans have a history of anti-trust regulation that can work well, and we fragment govt and hound its politicians, and still they pull shit like bankrupting cities, suspending habeas corpus, lying theru their teeth, etc. etc.

Written by Thomas Jefferson himself in the constitution of the Virginia Commonwealth (state).  It predates the 2nd amendment-- he wrote it when the colonies were still fighting the British.

It's much longer, but contains the same words exactly, with many more phrases between "A well-regulated miltia" and "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

I don't have the link, because I'm not at my own computer, but you could find it and look it up.  It's very instructive on the "original intent" of the founders.  Moreover, it makes it very clear that the purpose of it was to prevent a standing army, which Jefferson saw as inherently threatening to liberty.

when it comes to determining legislative intent, the statements of the author, etal are less convincing than whatever might be written into law itself, or at least the committee statment.  Because the guy who proposed it with one thing in mind doesn't mean the guy who accepted it might not have something else in mind.

Makes all the sense in the world that it was intended to minimize the need for a standing army.

You know, most boards, the 2nd amendment would draw all sorts of heat.

Here, the resident reactionaries have no ideas other than slinging mud about the clintons and whatever medals any Bush critic may have.  Pretty lame.