[Max2147]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

WOW! I've missed so much!

The Bill of Rights is just a statement of rights that the government is not supposed to be allowed to touch. The Second Amendment is just the numbering of one of those rights. The actual gun ownership is indeed the cornerstone of all freedoms, simply because the Founders recognized that it was private ownership of personal arms that enabled us to fight against tyranny in the first place - real or percieved.

The actual shooting started when the Royal Governor of Massachussetts sent troops to confiscate the contents of a militia armory, including cannons. So the Revolution actually started as a gun-control issue. You can't get much more 'cornerstone' than that.

And as for police 'protection', there has been more than one case in the courts in which people have tried to sue the police for not responding in time to save lives or property, and the verdict has always been the same: the police have no legal obligation to actually protect citizens from crime, and cannot be taken to court for failing to do so.

I'd rather depend on a .45 than a 911 call to save me and mine from intruders, thank you.

The 2nd Amendment wasn't meant to protect the people from the government, it was meant to protect the country (government included) from foreign invaders. We didn't have a standing army at the time, so we needed a militia to protect the country, and that militia needed to be armed for obvious reasons.

Nowadays militias are illegal. If you started a militia with an armory today, it would be legal for the government to shut you down and confiscate your guns, even with the 2nd Amendment.

If an American government really wanted to become a dictatorship, they would be able to do it even with the 2nd Amendment. A bunch of handguns won't stop a determined dictator with the military on their side. Red Dawn was a great movie, but so was Seven Days in May.