The Founding Fathers were trying desperately to keep their little nation from turning into someone's autocracy. They wanted and started a system where the people who live there would truly hold the power, not some elite which ruled over them. They believed one way to ensure this condition would be to never let the elite decide who could have a gun and who couldn't, and thus amendment #2.

They did not foresee how civilized and numerous and mechanized we would all become, nor that we would have vast standing armies and missiles. Doubtless it would have been better had they devised other ways to keep power in the hands of the people instead of a huge armed government. It seems silly today to think the little people could rise up and slap the runaway government into line at rifle point.   

That said, I still don't want Dick Cheney or George Bush or Mr. Gonzales to gather all the guns to themselves any more than they already have. And I'm pretty sure this Cho character would have slapped together some IEDs to do his dirty work had gunpower not been available.

And speaking of Dick & George, let's reflect on the fact that Iraqis have to live with massacres practically daily.