U.S. Constitution - 2nd Amendment

As with the Bible, people pull words and sentences from our Constitution to prove their own points of view.  This has been particularly true recently of the 2nd Amendment. 

As originally drafted the 2nd Amendment reads:  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  According to Webster's Dictionary, Militia is defined as "citizen army."  Using the same source Army is defined as "body of soldiers; large amount." 

Now it has been a few years since I studied American History but an army is usually a group of individuals, trained to fight for a common goal.  What a lot of people overlook is the part about A WELL REGULATED MILITIA.  Regulation would imply some sort of oversight to insure that the militia does not act on its own and do something that would endanger the common goal.  There have been military tribunals since the days of the wild west.  This was to insure that the calvary did not exceed its authority.

At some point in time prior to becoming a member of the military, our soldiers, sailors, etc were citizens.  They never lost their citizenship by joining the military.  They merely agreed to protect the United States as a whole as opposed to their own home, city, state only.  They did not become mindless killing machines as the veterans of the Viet Nam war were portrayed.  But they did become highly trained in the use of firearms that the average citizen did not.  This goes back to the wars in Greek and Roman history, when to win you had to insure that your opponent (enemy) suffered more loses than you did.  Any way to accomplish this in a time of war was acceptable.

Today we have people stockpiling AK 47s and AR 15s and high velocity ammunition strictly because they are afraid our Government cannot protect us.  Or they do not trust our Government to do the right thing or that, worst case, our Government would turn the army against us.  First, they have severely impacted the ability of duly sworn law enforcement to obtain the ammunition they need to keep our streets safe.  Second, if you disagree with our present Government, leave.  I am sure Mexico or Canada or South America would be happy to see you with some conditions of course.  Third, do you really think your AK 47 or AR 15 is any defense against a Scud or any other multiple shot warhead?  Fourth, have you really thought this through logically and without listening to the NRA, ACLU or any other special interest group?  Lastly, you proved the point that testing for competence to own and use a firearm should be mandatory not only at the time of sale but on a ongoing basis.

I believe that people, if they chose should have the right to own guns.  I believe that we need to provide the same level of monitoring that we do for people who drive cars to those people.  I also believe that weapons that have the capability of firing multiple rounds of ammunition should not be sold to the general public, rather they should remain for law enforcement and the military.