I guess this decision will end the debate once and for all...other than the arguments over whether the case was decided correctly.  It's about time.

Lets take a wild guess the majority will vote with big business.What a surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is your country fool.

guns for all

There can be no question that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. Moreover, it is a "natural" right that is recognized not a privilege given by the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers were very clear (in there numerous writings and speeches) about the arms meaning all manner of military weapons for the primary purpose of self-defense against criminality and unjust attacks initiated by the government. All of the genocides and successful repression of people striving for liberty were possible because a government sent armed soldiers and servants to act against an unarmed populace.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 are the most severe breaches of the Second Amendment and should both be scrapped.

I do not believe that our founding fathers could have envisioned the extent of gun violence that occurs daily in our country. It was I believe not intended for Uzi's, automatic machine guns, hallow points and others high powered guns that is obviously not for hunting and/or your right to bear arms for protection in one's own home. Spare me the guns do not kill argument that is insane and idiotic. Lets continue to allow no gun controls and background checks; so we can have more school shootings; and point fingers and/or ignore and be focus only on fighting terrorism. Easy for the Charleston Heston's of world because they are surrounded by the best security money can buy.

The 2d Amendment is plain and simple...there is no individual right to bear arms, it's terms as the right of "the people" as qualified by the preceding phrase regarding militias.  Therefore, the amendment does not mean there are several rights listed in it...just the one, for the states to arm themselves with militias filled with people and their arms.  

"Easy for the Charleston Heston's of world because they are surrounded by the best security money can buy."

So are your Wealthy Elite Liberal Masters that don't have to live in the world they create.

You suppose Cheney will be able to take to the streets with his big gun?Big business will decided this case.A well armed militia sounds like like it comes from the revolutinary war.Are citizens aallowed to be called a well armed malitia or is meaning the military?              

A bit academic at this point since he no longer is at Justice, but Alberto Gonzalez once prepared a legal brief in preparation for a possible argument before the Supreme Court to overturn the ban on machine gun ownership by private citizens.  The 2nd Amendment was passed in an age of muzzle loaders.  Does anyone really think the Founders would have approved of every person on the street being free to pack a .50 cal. machine gun?

For those who somehow feel the second ammendment is an anacronistic relic 'because the founding fathers couldn't imagine guns like the Uzi' or some such tripe lets concider a few other bits of information...

The founders were familiar with things like private cannon companies.  That would be where wealthy landowners would pay for small artillery pieces to be used by the local millitias.  These were the machineguns of their day, they were the heavy weapons and (obviously) artillery of the day.  Also common in the day were privateers or private warships.  The nations of that time could not always fund a navy suitable for their wartime needs so they would issue letters of marquee allowing private warships to supplement the regular navy.

If they understood those private arms then the second ammendment is certainly relevent and up to date.  The second ammendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms of military utility.

Why is it that in every location where the people were allowed to carry concealed hand guns crime went down? This was documented by a liberal professor who had expected quite the opposite result.  Perhaps, one of the readers can give the specifics of this study.

I agree that if you want a firearm to protect yuor house, you should be able to have one. You should be required to be licensed to handle it and know about firearm safety.
That being said, conceal carry would be entirely too dangerous. The populace would not be better served if everyone was walking around with a heater in thier waistband.
There should be background checks as well as freedom to purchase and own a firearm.

Just what D.C., possibly the most gun-violent city in the country needs---more guns!!  Let every crackhead on every street corner, every gang member in every project have a whole frigging arsenal, the police aren't outgunned enough there yet.    And let law-abiding citizens carry concealed so they can shoot it out with the muggers and thugs and blast a few kids and old ladies in the crossfire!  Why not?  Happens all the time in Iraq!  Let Baghdad be our model of Second Amendment gun ownership; we actually GIVE guns to our old enemies there!  Maybe we should just pass out AKs in the elementary schools.  Let's turn D.C. into MORE of free-fire zone than it already is! Happiness really IS a warm (just-shot-at-someone) gun.  Band-bang, shoot-shoot. Who is making huge profits out of this madness,anyway?  FOLLOW THE money!!

juan,ft lauderdale,fl / outlawing firearms ain't going to reduce criminal activity, d.c. is an excellent example of how gun control is a farce, it has one of the highest crime rates in the country and the strictest gun control laws, your argument don't cut much hay

The full text of the ammendment reads:

"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."

1) The phrase "the right of the people" or "the people" has always been interpretted as referring to an individual right.  If the second ammendment only grants the states the right to regulate their own militias (aka the National Gaurd) this would be the only instance where that phrase deals with a state right.  This document was not put togeather slap dash on a bar napkin.  It was debated for weeks.  Every line, every word.  If the founding fathers did not intend for this to be an individual right, one would think they would not have used the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged".  One would think they would have said something along the lines of "each state shall have the right to regulate a militia in a manner that shall be prescribed by the state legislature."

2) The phrase "being necessary to the security of a free state" is important.  Notice they didn't say "the security of the union" or "the country" or any other specific case here?  They were speaking of free states in general and not specifically the United States.  The lack of the use of the specific article in that sentence (again remember - this document was debated for weeks. The language is very deliberate.) implies that the founders felt that not only should Americans have this right, but so too should Canadians, the French, the English, the Swedes and any other free society.

The second ammendment is an individual right.  And while I don't own a firearm for my own reasons (you are statistically much more likely to shoot a family member than use a gun to defend yourself in your own home) the founders felt that an armed populace served to keep the government afraid of the people instead of the people afraid of the government.  

You don't have to like guns.  But the Constitution says that you and everyone else has the right to own them.  

In all actuality, most of the so called 'gun violence' has occurred in places where gun control is the law. What should instead happen is for every citizen to be required to own a firearm and to be able to show responsible usage of it. If the teachers and students at these places where school shootings have occurred were armed, instead of forced to be unarmed, then the shooters would have taken many fewer lives before their own were summarily ended by armed bystanders.  Had folks been armed at the McDonald's restaurant several years ago there would have been the first shooting, maybe a second, but after that the shooter in question would have been filled with lead, as appropriate.  If all citizens were armed then the US could worry a lot less about foreign terrorists, each citizen would be an anti-terrorist cop with the force to stop these miscreants in their tracks.  High Powered weapons, sure, if they are criminalized then only criminals will have them, and our own military and Dept. of Justice folks....which are becoming harder to tell from the crooks to begin with with warrantless entry and the way that they all stand up for each other when they commit offenses against the public. That was the other reason for an individually armed public:  to keep the politicians and public servants honest, knowing that the public that they serve has the ultimate way to remove them from their positions that they are abusing.  Especially when those individuals control the law enforcement arms of the government making it impossible to bring them to trial instead.  For our Founding Fathers this was not an exercise in "What Ifs"....they were confronted with the reality of it every day in an aggressive, oppressive government preying upon it's own citizens, and made sure that the future citizens would have the tools to stop it in their own times.

Too bad Americans are not required to read and understand the Federalist Papers which were a series of articles and pamphlets which clearly explain what the Founding Fathers meant because the Papers were written by several of the Founding Fathers.  The States were concerned that a standing army under the control of a central government could be used against any one of the states.  That's why there is no mention in the Constitution of a national army as there is of a national navy and why in lieu of a national army state controlled militias were to be called upon in the event of invasion or insurrection.  The 2nd Amendment assures the states that their militias could not be disarmed by the central government.  It's amazing and a wonderment that the Supreme Court has never heard a case that directly posits the underlying reason for the 2nd Amendment.  We will soon find out if this Court really believes in strict adherence to the actual words of the Bill of Rights or not.

"Guns don't kill people, the government does."
    Dale, from "King of the Hill"

"I guess this decision will end the debate once and for all"

No, it'll only settle it until the next time the Supreme Court hears a 2nd Amendment case. Some of the Court's most famous decisions, after all, are reversals of previous rulings. Brown v. Board of Education, for example, overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. Of course, as long as the current set of justices are around, they're not likely to reverse their own rulings, but a decade or so down the road this issue, no matter which way it's decided, will probably be revisited.

"I do not believe that our founding fathers could have envisioned the extent of gun violence that occurs daily in our country. It was I believe not intended for Uzi's, automatic machine guns, hallow points and others high powered guns that is obviously not for hunting and/or your right to bear arms for protection in one's own home."

The 2nd Amendment is not, and never was, about hunting. Nor was it even about self-defense. The founding fathers explicitly DID want private citizens to have state of the art military weaponry. That was the whole point of the 2nd Amendment: that if America were invaded, the entire citizenry would become the nation's military.

Fully automatic weapons are extremely difficult and expensive to obtain legally in the US, Juan. Chances are, any such firearm encountered on the streets is illegal.

You do realize of course that when they wrote the constitution. The founding fathers had just WON a war against the largest military in the world, because the farmers, bankers, and silversmiths of this country had military grade weapons. They didn't have shotguns, pistols, bows, or slings. They had state of the art military rifles. The purpose of the 2nd amendment was defense against tyranny, foreign and domestic. How are you going to stop a corrupt govt with birdshot? Their intent was to preserve the habit of keeping modern military weapons in the hands of the people so there would be an even playing field. If they HAD envisioned the mechanized war we have today, they would have included rockets, tanks, helicopters, etc. The purpose was never to limit or disarm the public, but to empower them so any govt (ours included) would think twice before trying to enslave them.

"The 2d Amendment is plain and simple...there is no individual right to bear arms, it's terms as the right of "the people" as qualified by the preceding phrase regarding militias.  Therefore, the amendment does not mean there are several rights listed in it...just the one, for the states to arm themselves with militias filled with people and their arms."

Does that mean that it's the states, and not individuals, who have the right to freedom of speech, religion, and assembly? After all, the same language ("the people") is used in the 1st Amendment. Or is the 2nd the only one in which "the people" actually means "the states"?

Juan, you obviously no nothing about american gun laws or guns in general. The 2nd amendment is not about hunting, it's about having weapons fit for militia service, and ALL men in the US, even non citizens are in the militia, and that's a 20th century law, not 18th. "Arms" mean military weapons, but the 2nd amendment is not limited to only those weapons, the founding fathers intended every law abiding citizen to be able to defend themselves with a weapon inside their home, or outside of it with either a concealed or openly carried weapon. The founding fathers obviously knew that technology would evolve, including in the area of weapons development. To say the 2nd amendment should be limited to only 18th century weapons would be no different than to say that the 1st amendment only protects things written with a quill pen, and that they could not have imagined the amount of hate and terrible ideas that could be spread using modern tools of speech, such as the typewriter, or the internet.

America has more gun laws than any other nation and an FBI background check is required by law for all purchases from a dealer, and it is illegal for anyone to knowingly sell a gun or ammunition to any prohibited person (felons people ruled insane by a court). Hollow point rounds are an absolute necessity  for personal protection, they are far less likely to overpenetrate than full metal jacket rounds and go through a bad guy into someone or something else, which is why police and anyone serious about defending themselves or their family use them, and of course they wound better, which is the idea of shooting someone in the 1st place, to stop them, by either killing or disabling them. Hunting rifles are also far far more high powered than an "uzi automatic machinegun", the uzi fires a tiny pistol round, hunting rifles fire rounds 10 times more powerfull with an effective range in excess of a mile. And EVERY mass shooting in american history has happened in a "gun free zone", where those who where people licensed by the state to carry concealed pistols, (a system that has been proven beyond any doubt that it reduces violent crime, and there has not been a single incident of a licensed individual hurting or killing someone illegally)where forbidden by law to do so could have stopped them, and of course the lunatic ignored the "no guns allowed" sign. Incidents where lunatics try to go on a rampage in a public place, like a street, or any place where law abiding citizens are permitted to defend themselves, it only resulted in a few deaths or injuries or sometimes none at all, as opposed to dozens, often with the gunman himself left alive, because he surrendered to citizens armed with concealed weapons. Also machineguns have been regulated since 1934, and only one crime has ever been committed with a legally owned machinegun, and that was a cop who murdered an informant. If you really think having no guns makes people safer, than please put a sign on your front lawn that says "this is a gun free home", I'm willing to bet your home would get broken into before your neighbors. And if you really want to take away the guns of law abiding citizens, I hope you are prepared to murder a lot of them, because once a man is armed, he can no longer be disarmed, only defeated. If you want to live in a "gun free society" so much, go move to england. OH wait, they banned pretty much all guns, and their gun crime rate went UP! That's unpossible!

If there was a way to have regularly formed groups that could collectively own the weapons, that might be more acceptable?  I think that most weapons should be recalled.  If there is a way for police departments to test and licence everyone before they are permitted to own a gun of any sort, that might work better than the current system.  

"It was I believe not intended for Uzi's, automatic machine guns, hallow points and others high powered guns that is obviously not for hunting and/or your right to bear arms for protection"

I'm sure they realized that progress would be made as far as the technology used in firearms as time went on. And honestly, banning them would only keep the weapons out of the hands of law abiding citizens, not criminals aren't going to follow the law anyway.

John Doe, you are not more likely to shoot a family member than an intruder. That "statistic" said "occupant of your home" not family member, because in order to get that statistic they had to cherry pick houses in areas they knew would get that result, they consider a crack dealer who shoots his partner for the money to be the same as someone who accidentally shoots a family member thinking it was a burglar. That is very much unlikely, and they also had to discount the incidents where an intruder as scared off without a shot fired. This was also from the new england journal of medicine, hardly a reliable source on gun safety or home defense. So you MAY be more likely to shoot another occupant of your home than an intruder,  but you are FAR FAR more likely to scare off an intruder with no shots fired than shooting a family member. It is an undeniable fact, firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens prevent mroe crimes than firearms in the hands of criminals. Guns are used 2.5 million times annually by citizens to stop or prevent a crime, firearms are involved in about 30,000 deaths annually, among the fewest deaths related to anything found in the home. 20,000 of those deaths are accidents, which are obviously preventable by people learning proper safety, Dick Cheney I'm looking in your direction, most of the remaining 10,00 are actually criminals shot mostly by armed citizens, and a smaller amount by police. There are only about 1500 murders commited with a firearm in the US every year. And before anyone says that "a handgun in the home kills one kid every day", keep in mind that the brady campaign considers men in their 20s "children" including violent felons, shot by rival gangs and police. In reality in ground pools are far far more dangerous to children than a handgun in the home.

Not that any statistic showing how bad guns are is a reason to deprive law abiding citizens of a NATURAL right RECOGNIZED, not given, by the constitution.

John Doe:

You analyze every phrase in the amendment except for the first one - "A well regulated militia."  It is not guns that are necessary to the well being of the state - it is a well-regulated militia that is necessary to the well being of the state.  It is under that context that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" exists.  

the term "people " is used various times in the Bill of Rights. The framers did not do this to have one be all persons, and another mean the state. All the people is all the indiviuals of the USA.

The criminals do not care are gun laws, and laws do not stop them from getting guns, drugs or anything else illegal. Ask the British now about the crime wave that is in their non-gun owning country now that only the criminals have guns, home invasions up 250% in the last 5 years, murders, burglary, and armed robberies, are at a all time high. So you tell me how gun control work there???

DC has a high rate, murder, burglaries, rape, armed robbery because the common citizen can not protect themselves without the fear of on the law coming down on them for have firearms for their own protection, and get jail time for a gun violation all the while the drug dealer, robbers, and rapist have their guns.

It is the courts that have a chance to right alot of wrongs....

IT IS RIGHT OF ALL AMERICANS TO OWN AND BEAR ARMS (ANY FIREARMS FROM A PEE SHOOTER TO A CANNON IF THEY WANT) FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THEIR NEIGHBOR.

Mr. Doe, the Founding Fathers were concerned about the right of Swedes to possess firearms?

Go find a copy of the Federalist Papers. You will find that the thirteen individual states (not including Sweden) were concerned that a centrally controlled military could threaten the individual states. Just for kicks, try and find in the Constitution the creation of a national army; it's not there, but a national navy is.  The reason is that the Founding Fathers, to allay the fears of the states, agreed that in times of invasion or insurrection, the state militias would be called to arms under the Commander in Chief (i.e. the President).  Then the concern the states had was that the central government could disarm the state militias and emasculate the states. Hence the 2nd Amendment. The reason the states agreed to  a national navy was two-fold:  It would be ridiculous for each state to have its own navy and a common navy would protect all ports which would benefit all of the states. By the way, while you are at it, get a copy of the Articles of Confederation which also refers to the individual states (without mention of Sweden) and precedes the Constituion.  The Articles were not perfect which is why the Constiution begins with, "In order to provide for a more perfect union. . ."    

Everything must be read in context. The rest of the Bill of Rights was directed at individual rights (except arguably the 9th and 10th), why should the 2nd amendment be the exception? It wouldn't make sense.

Just a small note.  Look up the etymology of the word "regulated".  One of its older definitions was "disciplined".  Now, remembering that this document was written a fair time ago, substitute this older meaning into the first phrase of the amendment in the place of 'regulated'.   "A well disciplined militia," definitely lends itself to supporting the sense that this is a right of the individual.

Time to go buy a gun just in case they decide wrong.  

I agree wholeheartedly with the last statement from The Peanut Gallery. I only own one gun...a hunting rifle. Thats what it't used for. A ban on guns restricts honest peoples rights to own guns. It does not take the guns out of the hands of the criminals!!!
If I lived in D.C. you can bet I would have a hand gun for protection.

It seems the amendment clearly allows for both the formation of a well-regulated militia and the individual right of the people to KEEP and bear arms.

Pat huntington:  

Are freedom of speech, freedom of religion,  freedom of the press and freedom to assemble individual rights or just a generic "right of the people" to be qualified by other contexts or factors?

How about the sixth amendment?  Does "right of the people" apply to individuals or are there qualifiers?

I don't own guns for my own reasons but I want the individual right to do so if I change my mind.  Isn't that "choice"?

Tim, check your facts.  

While the rate of "gun-related-crime" has gone up in the UK since the ban in 1997, those statistics include the use of immitation guns and air-rifles.  

In fact, the fatalities from guns in the UK have remained steady at between 46 and 97 for the past decade (ie, since the ban), settling at 50 in 2005/2006, the last year for which data is available.

When you compare homicide statistics in the U.S. and the UK, you can really see the difference that the 1997 gun ban has made.  In 2005/2006, the UK had 1.4 homicides per 100,000, 6.6% of these involved guns.  In 2000 (the last year for which I could find U.S. statistics), the U.S. had 5.5 homicides per 100,000 of population.  That's almost 4 times the UK number.  70% of the U.S. homicides involved guns.

It's quite clear that if you eliminate guns entirely, crime goes down.

Studies on U.S. cities where gun control fails to lower crime are useless.  Of course gun control in DC isn't going to work if you can simply go to Virginia and buy as many guns as you would like.  For gun control to work, it has to be applied equally across the entire country.

By the way, for the law-abiding hunters who feel they will be unfairly penalized by gun control, the UK ban does allow exceptions for shotguns used for hunting, with strict limitations on the gun type: barrels with length of no less than 24" (ie, no sawed-off shotguns), non-detachable magazines that hold no more than 3 rounds, etc. etc.  I'm sure we could come up with fair policies that allowed for reasonable hunting weapons to be kept (ie, a .222 is fine but no .50).

"Just what D.C., possibly the most gun-violent city in the country needs---more guns!!  Let every crackhead on every street corner, every gang member in every project have a whole frigging arsenal, the police aren't outgunned enough there yet."

Every gangbanger and crackhead in DC already DOES have "a whole frigging arsenal". Oddly enough, criminals have little problem with the idea of breaking the law. Funny how that works, isn't it? The only thing DC's gun ban accomplishes it to make it illegal for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves. If an armed criminal breaks into a DC resident's home, the resident will be completely at the attacker's mercy because he's banned from having any kind of firearm on hand to defend himself.

But all of that is really beside the point. Whether a law is effective (and DC's gun ban most certainly is not) has no bearing at all on whether it's constitutional.

juan,ft lauderdale,fl says, "I do not believe that our founding fathers could have envisioned the extent of gun violence that occurs daily in our country. It was I believe not intended for Uzi's, automatic machine guns, hallow points and others high powered guns that is obviously not for hunting and/or your right to bear arms for protection in one's own home."

John B, Des Moines, IA says, "The 2nd Amendment was passed in an age of muzzle loaders.  Does anyone really think the Founders would have approved of every person on the street being free to pack a .50 cal. machine gun?"

This captures common thinking among folks who are ready to dismantle and disregard the Second Amendment. Educate yourselves through the writings and speeches of the Founding Fathers, in addition to the known history of the rigorous debate forming the Constitution and its first batch of Amendments, i.e., Bill of Rights. There is no need for supposition. For example, Tench Coxe, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress wrote in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette on February 20th 1788:

"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

This is but one of many samples of their opinion on the matter. The framers of the Constitution made it abundantly clear that government should not have a monopoly on force of arms. The Second Amendment is intentionally broad to recognize the right of the citizen to keep and bear all manner of weaponry – from sharp sticks to rocket launchers – useful against tyrannical government.

Obviously, not everyone agrees (and that is okay) with the Second Amendment’s necessity or appreciates its value. However, the correct course of action would be another amendment to reflect that vision.

To deny the meaning of the Second Amendment is disingenuous and/or ignorant as well as subversive of proper Constitutional processes for change.

"the shooter in question would have been filled with lead, as appropriate."  Yeah, and probably multiple "bystanders" as well as more and more people enter the gunfight, taking each other out thinking they're making the situation better but instead escalating the carnage.  Idiot.

Some good arguments and references.

Mike, I am not in favor of dismantling the second amendment.  I grew up in a small town where nearly everyone hunted.  It's deer season right now and I'm firmly behind the recreational hunting as well as controlling the deer population for their own good.  Shooting at the range recreationally is better than a lot of other things people can do for fun.  If you want to keep a gun on hand in your home by all means, although statistically that makes your family and friends less safe instead of more, it's your choice.  But citizens walking the streets with all the firepower of the police department, ready to unload on anyone if they feel the urge, is contrary to the best interests of society.  And suggesting that the Founders would have encouraged private citizens to own rockets and attack helicopters is beyond insane.

The purpose of the Second Amendment is not for the National Guard to exist, nor is it to have a gun to shoot a crackhead breaking into your house, or killing deer during the winter.

The purpose of the Second Amendment is to help ensure that the citizenry of the United States of America is always more powerful than the government.

I think that the phrase that all gun control folks purposefully neglect to read is the part about "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED UPON."  (my caps for clarity)  What part of Shall Not be Infringed upon don't they get??  Clearly this states that there shall be NO laws against the owning or bearing arms, period.  Cut, dried and very simple folks.  And for the "extra carnage" concerning folks taking things into their hands when a shooter opens up illegally?? I think not, most folks are not crazed and will only use their weapons when there is a clear, specific need.  Otherwise they are just crazed as well, and that definition does not fit the majority of the populace. Most people are Not 'idiots' therefore there is no need for the law to treat them as such.

Jane Doe, will you marry me?  A gun lovin chick like you should definately be a welcome addition to us Free State Project fellas.

The people that most fear free and unfettered gun ownership are criminals, corrupt politicians, the uneducated and the brainwashed and the obscenely rich.  Criminals and corrupt politicians because it would threaten their livelihoods (as well as their very lives), the uneducated and brainwashed because they have been told so, rather than thinking for themselves and/or researching the Constitution, what it means and why we have it, and the rich because they have always been worried about an "Armed uprising of the unwashed masses" over their obscene amassing of wealth on the backs of those same "Unwashed masses".  They worry, and, with the exception of the uneducated and brainwashed, rightly so!!  Also, I prefer to see realistic statements rather than the tossing up of easily recognized straw men to be knocked apart and name calling, which one particular individual posting here seems to think is responsible debate. Calling people 'idiots' and 'insane' is only flaming and has no usefulness in honest debate.  

This could be the beginning of the end with over 10 million firearms owned by the population. If the court votes no on private ownership. Who will collect these now illegal firearms and who will willingly give them over to our new found protectors? Don't mistake this as a call for people to rise up because it is not.
This vote will be interesting indeed considering my business is based on it. I fear the civil unrest far more than changing direction in my business.

Who is calling for privately owned weapons to be siezed?  Who?  NO ONE!!!!!!!!!!  Jeez, nothing like a bunch of armed paranoids running around to make you sleep better at night.

John B, Des Moines, IA, you're reiterating hollow arguments and missing the point. So if you vehemently support the original intent of the Constitution, you're "paranoid" or "beyond insane"?

Come on, you're sounding like a blind neo-con. Read this, my friend... http://truthalert.net/Green%20Libertarian%20Nationalism.htm#_Toc183353742

"And suggesting that the Founders would have encouraged private citizens to own rockets and attack helicopters is beyond insane."

On the contrary, it suggests a proper understanding of the Founders' intentions. They intended for private citizens to be able to function as a military should the need arise; that's exactly how the Revolution was fought. The Founders also were not stupid men. They knew that newer, better weapons would continue to be developed. Obviously they didn't know the details of how future weapons development would turn out, but they certainly had no intention that the 2nd Amendment would forever apply only to the weapons of the 18th century.

There are over 250 million firearms in the U.S.  Many of the anti-gun crowd want a near total ban, NOT "gun control", for example as the Brady group still contends. At issue is D.C. having effectively a total ban on functional firearms, effectively disarming its own citizenry. REASONABLE regulation is fine, but I personally do not believe the government should ever confiscate weapons from law-abiding people, period.  They did that after hurricane Katrina and left the people of New Orleans defenseless in their own homes, while murder, looting and rapes occurred.  This was really wrong, by any reasonable standard.  Our founding fathers knew of the possibility of tyranny against its citizens.  Is this not what has happened in D.C. in some measure?  The crime statistics and social statistics do not fix the problem that D.C. and other large cities have, nor do the some 20,000 gun laws,  many of which are conflicting within the same county and state boundaries.  It is proper for the Supreme Court to tackle this issue and let the Constitution count for something.  Without the 2nd amendment, most of the others mean nothing in the final analysis.  Surely the fed will still prohibit hand grenades, machine guns and the like, but not common hunting rifles, shotguns and handguns in use throughout the U.S., okay, maybe not in D.C.  Yet.  Be careful who you vote for if you value self-defense and the shooting sports and hunting.  Over half of the candidates do not seem to understand or value the 2nd amendment, despite some of their very recent affirmations to the contrary.  This issue will be a good part of the election in 2008 and many longtime firearm owners are not members of the NRA or other identifiable pro-gun groups.  And yes, they generally DO vote.

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