Our present government is trying every backdoor trick if can discover or invent to circumvent the Constitution with regard to both the First and Second Amendments. The Second has always been a target of those who blame an inanimate object for the behavior of a person. We are too lenient on crime and too protective of the criminal at the expense of every law-abiding person. We are expected to be helpless victims rather than strong, capable citizens.

John Lott has it right, as usual. An examination of the statistics of each state amply show that the more well armed the people are the less crime there is in that state.

The Second Amendment, unabridged as was the intent of the Founders, is meant to protect the First Amendment and the lives and safety of all of us as individuals. As we have seen today, both of these are under threat of extinction by those seeking power over us. "Political correctness" is but another way of abridging both. According to the U.N., the right to bear arms is for the protection of the State, and is not intended to protect the individual, and our current administration favors the U.N. arms control treaty. Our nation, our freedom, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and our sovereignty are in great danger.

The money they give back to us is the money they took from us in the first place minus a big chunk they kept just for themselves. The deficit will be all ours and our childrens to pay while they go buy a mansion somewhere free of taxes.

Excellent quotation. There is no ambiguity in the Second Amendment if its grammatical construction and the historical intent of the Founders are both understood. The colonists and earlier settlers before them could not have survived without firearms to provide both food and protection. Today anyone who thinks the police can always protect them has a bad case of unreality. Times haven't changes that much. Bad guys prey on the weak and defenseless.

Beautiful words written by men of great wisdom who had the nearly impossible job of balancing all the various demands of the various states. That they did as well as they did is no less than a miracle. That they didn't do better is the result of their realization that they had done all they could do to get an agreement on any constitution at all. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights, if followed as it was written and intended to exercised, would provide us with a more effective, fair, and balanced government than we have today.