Well, how should we understand "militia"? Do current possession laws map on to the idea of a "militia" adequately or inadequately?

And then, people who are for gun rights, what sort of gun regulations would you want to see to increase safety and decrease fatalities, if any? Would you like to see other social policies in place in addition or instead to help curb violence perpetrated with guns?

I would like to see gun safety and use taught in High Schools. Guns are tools and not toys. Safety with tools is stressed in shop classes; guns are just another tool.

There is a well respected University in Texas, Texas Women's University in Denton, Texas, that once taught gun safety as a required course and even had a firing range in the basement of one of the dorms. This was not considered unusual in the 50's, and I think they taught this course up until the mid 60's.

It should also be taught that guns used in films are not normally used in their safest manner but in the most dramatic. There is a difference between real life and story telling, and it is difficult to do in real life what is easily done with special effects.

Owning a gun will not make you safer. Knowing how to use one will, but knowing how to stay out of trouble is the first step to avoiding trouble.

And.....

Guns are not the problem. Violence is.

When people are taught that violence is actually a poor solution to solving their problems then gun deaths due to violence will go down.

Never use a permanent solution to solve a temporary problem.

I think a lot of folks don't want to discuss the militia part of the 2nd. This implies there is a leadership structure necessary and that leadership structure comes from the government.

This was a common thing after WW1. Lots of folks kept weapons in their homes and they were expected to show up with them when called upon by the local government. The job was to keep the peace during natural disasters or to protect against raids along the border by Mexican gangs.

There was once a mining disaster near where I live and the newspapers of the day reported that the local militia showed up to keep the peace and keep the road clear for emergency workers. The militia was made up of the local police, firemen and trusted citizens who were trained to perform a task.

I think the 2nd can best be viewed as a series of laws. One deals with a well regulated militia, which is considered a necessity, and the other deals with the rights of US citizens who are free to do as they wish in the area of firearms ownership.

How should we understand "the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed?"

There's nothing terribly wrong with the Second Amendment with regard to the responsible private ownership of firearms.

That's really the bottom line. Attempts to keep guns out of the hands of those who would do our fellow citizens harm will always be only attempts.

To reduce the violence we could look at what causes the violence to begin with. I think the US would have a better chance at taking that approach then just to try and ban guns.

This only addresses misuse of firearms. Of course safety is #1 for any responsible gun owner, judging by the number of shooting reports in the news, people know how to use them just fine. Your second post is spot on, violence being the root of the problem. Its easy enough to say, but in reality how easy is it to get that into the head of angry 16 year olds? Aside from conflict resolution education (often laughed at by kids that age), how do we go about doing that?

I finally found some somewhat reasonably priced .45 Colt, if $42 a box is reasonable. I might go to the range today.

Agreed. I think it is a matter of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch whenever it comes to gun discussions. There are tons and tons of responsible gun owners out there who know the power of their firearms, and appropriate times to use that. Then there are those who buy their guns illegally, operate without training or a second thought to safety -- those are really the people we need to be concerned about. We'll never be able to ban guns outright in this country anyways, so might as well cut to the chase and address the real cause of problems.

I imagine all those Iraqi citizens that have had to take up their fully auto AK47 against ISIS is glad for the "free automatic for everyone" program that those countries seem to have.

A militia is a local self-oragizing armed force. One that is well-regulated has rules. The national guards of the various states started as militias as there was no standing national army, by design.

This is why when we read about the Civil War, we read things like the "4th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment". It was constituted, organized, recruited and regulated within the laws of the state.

Before the individual states began regularizing militias, each community had their own, like at Lexington and Concord, for example. The Minutemen were militias that self-organized in each community. They determined whether or not they would heed the colonial authority. The colonial governor could not issue them orders. He could ask them to do things.

The constitution is silent on what constitutes a "militia". I think you and I could organize one and establish by-laws that members must follow and that would be well-regulated. This is why the fed gov has been so reluctant to address what some people believe to be a problem with militias -- they are constitutionally protected.

So if we use the second part of the amendment to justify negating the first, we empower the private militia movement. Which is the greater threat to the national government, individuals acting individually on their gun rights or a multitude of private militias acting on their constitutional rights?

Not what's being addressed. Two separate statements.....

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...and
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Since it appears that the effective homocide numbers by guns are around 2,150, we need to advocate the banning of the following (using 2010 numbers):

1. Hammers & clubs as they account for around 500 homocides. No more nails please ... glue or screws only.

2. No more knives as around 2,000 homocides per year are attributed to stabbings

3. No more water, boats, swimming pools as drowning collectively takes around 4,000 folks a year. Admittedly, this is classified as non-intentional, which arguably makes it even worse since at least with guns, folks intend the results for the most part and there is roughly double that number resulting from humans in or around water and accidental events.

4. No more cars ... 1 out of 5000 die in a car crash annually in this country

See, the really smart folks on CNN and MSNBC who yell and scream every time there is a tradegy forget to point out the facts. What is their agenda ? Why disarm the populace ?

Any one going to venture the number of lives saved, crimes prevented or thwarted, property protected through the ownership of guns ???

Where's all the folks yelling and screaming about suicides? Where's the outrage over guns taking lives, although self-inflicted. I would think that the feminists would at least advocate for all the women in this country to maintain all their rights over their own body, even if that includes the taking of one's life. The feminist and slick politicians like Obama have ramped up the division and rhetoric with the war on women gimmick. If it's OK to take the life of the unborn, you know, the mom taking her own baby's life, then they certainly should advocate it's OK for just mom to take her own life.

Concure!

The Second Amendment: The Framers' Intentions