The 1700s was a different time. Those who wrote the ammendment knew that without guns/weapons they wouldn't've been able to break away from England's/government's unacceptable rule. To protect what was won (a new and better government we felt), this law was seen to be important enough to require an ammendment to the constitution. (All this is pretty obvious so far.)

In the year 2000 some say we have an out of control situation with desperate and sometimes paranoid PEOPLE willing to use guns to blow others who are different out of existence. "Social contract" tells us that in extraordinary times we need to take extraordinary measures. We make a deal to give up some things in order to achieve others. To insure domestic tranquility we sometimes use outrageous methods to quell outrageous and dangerous people/situations. Will those measures be taken? Well, only if THE GOVERNMENT, with the consent of the majority, sees fit to do it. "THE LAW" is whatever the Supreme Court says it is at any given moment. With the current Supreme Court in the U.S.A., no or at least few measures will be taken to limit guns. That's just a fact here and now. The Supreme Court, as it stood under Chief Judge Earl Warren and back in Rooseveltian times, just may have simply outlawed guns given our rate of anarchy in certain recent years. We sent the cavalry out West in the 1860s.---For better or for worse, we did it. During the Civil War we solved the problems in a similar but larger way.

Where will it all end? Who the hell knows??? My hopes for us all are that we will avoid the worst of it------as individuals, as a people, as a country---as a world.

Now I see why "May you live in interesting times" is a curse.

Art Thieme