The thing about Law is that it does have its roots in the popular mores of what is right and what is wrong. The problem is that the mores change, sometimes rapidly, and Law has to forever adjust to Justice. I differentiate, to be slightly more specific, between mores as a long-term norm and mob rule driven by contemporary issues, such as we saw in McCarthyism in the 1950s, and the Homeland Security paranoid of the last 10 years. To a great extent, the 2nd Amendment was the fruit of something similar, distrust in the British Army 200+ years ago. But in those 200 years, you've grown from the insecure 13 Colonies faced with the then greatest military force in the world to the greatest force itself, and it's time you left such immaturity behind, or you'll become discredited and seen as a paranoid Country.

Although my demolition of the ammunition argument is not as strong, say, as a "This clause of this Act says it's illegal", none the less it does hold. You've fallen prey to the Larsen E Pettifoggers of the 19th Century, in the pay of those whose interest was violence. A mature society controls its violence, holds its power as a steel hand in a velvet glove. This is not the solution of the Wild West, the replacement of the John Waynes by the Milquetoast Wouldbedonebys of the Bible Belt, but the realisation of that the French call the "Bon Pere de Famille", the mature man of a State, confident in its authority and yet generous in its responsibility. The Honest Abe of the Nations. We've been teaching your military that these last 20 years, and that is why you shouldn't fear them. Has there been any indication of a military coup these last 50 years? No? Well, perhaps they are happy in their role, encourage it.