<Well, every Supreme Court so far has regarded the words "well-regulated militia" as having meaning and being relevant to the intentions of the founders when they wrote that amendment.

Granted, the Supreme Court has whittled the Second Amendment down considerably, but given the quotations I have presented in the past, only an imbecile would believe that the original founders did not have individually-owned weapons in mind as a bulwark against tyranny. Heck, at the time they didn't even like the idea of a standing army, preferring to muster citizen volunteers. The "well-regulated militia." However, you note they didn't confiscate the soldiers' guns when they went back to the farm, either.

The goal of the left is total disarmament of the average citizen. All the talk about automatic weapons and such is a smoke screen. Get a couple of drinks into any anti-gun guy and he will admit that he wants all weapons illegal. He might grudgingly make an exception for hunting rifles, but only because he knows he would lose that fight.

The radical leftist, the dictator wanna-be you find at universities and coffeehouses, rightfully sees an armed citizenry as an obstacle to totalitarian power, as it has been throughout history. He doesn't mind guns in the hands of police, the National Guard, or the army because he assumes that when he is absolute leader, all those people will point those guns at his enemies for him ("they're OUR planes now!")*

The liberal, or average leftist, is not this psychotic. I believe that he is simply uncomfortable with armed citizens since he assumes in the back of his mind that they are all as psychologically unbalanced as he and his friends are (projection). Anyone hanging out at a Hollywood cocktail party would probably feel uncomfortable if any of those people was within fifty yards of a pointed stick.

Anyone who wishes to own a gun, in the liberal's opinion, wants one only "so that any person who feels inadequate, wants to walk a bit taller and swagger a bit more, for whom the capacity to kill anyone who they think deserves it whenever they feel like it, can do so." He is "some guy, his brother-in-law, a 12 pack and a platoon of resentments and grudges looking for someone who deserves to die."

It is natural for a liberal to feel that he is superior to most Americans. That's how you get to be a liberal, by assuming that most people are mentally incapable of living their own lives and need to be constantly told what to do. Preferably by force, since these citizens tend to get grumpy when bossed around. It's built in to liberals. Bowser is incapable of running the term "conservative" through his head without immediately developing a mental picture of someone with way too many chromosomes trying to win a banjo contest out in a swamp.

My own opinion of my fellow citizen is considerably higher. I would trust almost all of them with arms. Most of my relatives and many of my friends have guns, and I trust them not to shoot me. I also trust them not to take their automobiles and suddenly start driving down occupied sidewalks, or pour cyanide into the soda bottles at the grocery store.

It is right and proper for American citizens to be able to arm themselves. Certainly from a moral and philosophical standpoint, and with any luck in the future, from a legal standpoint.

*At Clinton's 1992 Presidential Inaugural some of the Hollywood types came to Washington and began booing when the jets flew over in formation. Actor Ron Silver was heard to counter the booing with, "No, it's okay; they're our planes now."