Hate to jump in on this one, and I mean no disrespect to either Doug or Jed (both of whom I find to be intelligent and polite gentlemen, even on political threads where their views are in the minority). But our Guest's interpretation of the second amendment is not "highly creative" at all, and in fact is shared by a great many Americans AND by the Supreme Court -- which has consistently ruled that the Second Amendment does NOT confer an individual right of gun ownership outside of the context of a militia. More often than not (in my experience), people who cite the Second Amendment in support of personal ownership of guns conveniently leave off the first words, and only quote the portion that comes after the comma. That is more "creative" than anything our Guest did.

Of course, we could go on to discuss the Constitutionality of governmental restrictions on the ownership of nuclear bombs, nerve gas, and other devices that fall neatly within the common definition of "arms". By Jed's logic, the government has no business telling me that I can't walk down Main Street with a machine gun, a beltful of hand grenades, a canister of Sarin gas, and any other "arms" of my choosing. But I suppose that truly is a topic for another thread.