[mbossman2]

here is the 2nd amendment:

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.

(please not that state in the this case truly means state, as in the state of Virginia or North Carolina, not state as in a country as a whole)

The constitutional framers knew that any large centralized government could quite easily be turned from serving the people, to being tyrannical rulers over the people. So they set up provisions to allow the rights of the people to trump the powers granted in the consitution. (read the constitution, the 1st part, the constitution itself, lists how the government is formed, what it can do, how it can about doing it and the 2nd part, the amendments, in essence say: wait a minute, here are the things the government CAN NOT do).

Now, as was pointed out at the end of the very long "gun Control" thread, rights are just words on a piece of paper and can be tossed just as easily (actually probably a heck of a lot easier) than they were accepted. So the framers built in a defense mechanism to protect the rights of the people from tyrants: the 1st was the right of speech (to decry the abuses of power), the right to assemble (to collect the power of many) and to petition the government for redress over these grievances. If the 1st method failed, because the government refused to listen to their citizens, the 2nd method was still avaiable, that of revolution and for a revolution to be successful (as the framers learned 1st hand), the populace must be armed (as were the militia members who fought at the early battles of the revolutionary war) so they guaranteed that right in perpetuity.

Mr Krinkle,

Take a look at the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers of the time and you will see the struggles our founding fathers went thru as they were debating the role of the central/federal government. They can be dry and heavy, but very enlightening to see that our founding fathers had a lot of vision and were able to see the forest from the trees and framed things generally enough to be applicable no matter how time marched on and things changed. As long as human nature remained the same, the rules they created would be applicable.

Ron,

I agree that it is kind of odd that there is little comment on the 2nd amendment from the high court. I would like to think that the reason for that is they, as an institution, understand that the 2nd amendment is the citizen's "doomsday" weapon to be used in case of absolute dire emergency when the core fundamental rights of these same citizens are threatened by the government and as such should be left alone as much as possible (kind of like: don't kick the box of nitro, it might blow up and not be there when you REALLY need it)