re: #63 SanFranciscoZionist

“The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government.”

???

Reading the founding fathers, that is a major part of the original intent. The other major part is that to them, standing armies were incompatable with a free nation. These United States would only have a tiny cadre of professional soldiers and would fight the enemy with militia levies. They did not foresee that this would prove to be a miserable failure even as soon as 1812 (or had failed miserably during the actual revolution but even they could see what they wanted to see not what was reality on occasion…)

They also would not have imagined the vast difference in even simple small arms that exists between then and now. Crew served & larger weapons would be an interesting issue to put before them though I expect that they would come down and say to allow them as canon were allowed to the militia & sailing vessels in their day.

It can seem strange in our day and age but when you look at how they expected the common defense to be provided for, an armed citizenry is very important to that conception.

William