'Twas me that hijacked this thread, after Ted Nugent's name came up and people started talking about his support for the right to own guns. Blame me for not being able to resist temptation.

Doug, I appreciate your comments. I think the difference between me and the people who interpret the Bible literally is the fact that we're discussing a different document. Most modern-day readers recognize that the Bible is full of poetry and metaphor, and that substantial portions of it were not intended to be taken literally. By contrast, the Constitution IS meant to be taken literally -- otherwise, evaluating laws based on their Constitutionality would be impossible. As this discussion demonstrates, that can still be difficult, but I really don't believe the framers intended the Second Amendment to serve as a metaphor.

If the consensus were that the Second Amendment applies only to "arms" as they existed in the 18th century, we would be having a very different discussion here. You would insist on your right to carry a musket, and I would insist that you limit yourself to a musket -- single-shot, muzzle-loading (if you could show me they had breech-loaders in the 18th century, I might let you get away with that), etc. But once you move beyond 18th-century technology, it seems to me that your arguments are weak -- unless you are willing to bring the discussion up to the present-day, and include all of the armaments that we currently are capable of producing. Drawing the line somewhere in between, with no reference to the Constitutional logic behind your decision, seems pretty arbitrary to me.

Also, I have to say (again) that the whole argument about citizens being armed so they can resist the power of a despotic government seems pretty silly to me if we're not going to allow both sides in this theoretical dispute to possess the same kind of firepower. It's a nice romantic notion that farmers with hunting rifles are going to triumph over helicopter squadrons, "smart bombs," and the rest of the stuff the government can throw at you when they get serious. But firepower matters, and anyone who figures that a 30/30 and a righteous cause will decide the issue is in for a rude awakening.

As Jed said, we can agree to disagree. Pleasure chatting with you -- WS