There is a big problem, not often talked about, with disarming the citizens of a country. I'm sure we would all like to live in a world where there was no danger from guns and a lot less violence. So-called 'gun control' may seem to promise that result but it is often tragically counter-productive. If you take away the right of ordinary citizens to own guns, then the only only ones with guns, besides the criminals, are the police and military. This may seem safer for ordinary citizens in the short run but this is bad for democracy and freedom, and often much more dangerous for everybody, in the long run. An armed citizenry is a natural check and balance against the government getting too much power. If there is NOTHING that a government can do that can possibly provoke any real, effective opposition, like an armed revolution, then that government can, and very well might, do anything, no matter how awful or murderous. In the twentieth century, more people died at the hands of their "own" government than died in all of the wars put together. In the Soviet Union, Stalin killed over 20 million people, Hitler killed over 9 million, the Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia killed around 2 million in a country with a population of 6 million, and the list goes on and on. In this modern world, these things can happen because a small group of men with automatic weapons can control and even massacre much, much larger groups of unarmed people. If you say, 'well, it couldn't happen here', then you should remember that most people in Europe in the early 1930's would have said the exact same thing. You never know when fascists might be able to subvert your democratic governmental institutions, perhaps with rigged elections or politically motivated court decisions, take over the government and begin a drive to total and permanent power. About the only thing holding them back in such a case is the ability of the citizenry as a whole to resist murderous excesses and abuses of power. People will have no such ability if only the army and police forces have weapons. Our Founding Fathers, having just fought a revolution against a corrupt and oppressive government, recognized this truth and enshrined this natural check on the power of the government in the Second Amendment.

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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky

Amen, brothers and sisters!

phew, my heart skipped a beat on this one. I very much agree with that.

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

The thing where it gets complicated is that the government has nukes and tanks and s*%#. We don't and due to the particular nature of those weapons I don't think it's practical that normal citizens should have them. And until war comes to an end, it is impractical for governments to disarm themselves of these horrible things.
True, I feel people should have the right to bear arms. But the whole fighting the government thing is a little unrealistic now. Tanks and bombers trump AK47s and shotguns. If we ever go up against the military, we're f^$@$@!

They got the guns. We got the numbers.

We'd put up a good fight at least.

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

Who cares, sounds like a pile of BS. People can still have available access to guns without it being a right.

Timothy Mcveigh hated the government and no doubt wanted to overthrow it, so I guess its safe to say he was excersising his rights, except instead of shooting government officials he blew up a building.

The chances of the government being hijacked by extremists is very low. If it does happen then its best to not oppose them, unless you want to be tortured or die.

At least the "right to bear arms" is justified as a means of personal defense. It just sounds like people are finding an excuse to own a tank when suggesting the government is under threat of hijacked by fascists.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

A disarmed citizenry is all that much easier for the government to oppress. Which is why the ordinary common lumps ought to have the right to the recreational use of nuclear bombs.

See, if a loon gets ahold of a gun, a bomb, or even a tank, it's not the end of the world. If a loon gets ahold of a nuke, it just might be. MADD doesn't take every private citizen into account. Personally I'd distrust any citizen that would want a nuke for whatever reason. Ideally NO ONE, not even governments should have nukes. But at least with governments, MADD works. That would not be the case with madmen and corporations owning nukes.

These scenarios of us having to face down American troops is a bit silly. I can put forth a scenario where many troops switch sides to fight on the side of their families....bringing along their nice little weapons they have.

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Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

Governments, left to their own devices, will oppress. Thus, if the people are disarmed, that only makes it so much easier for government to use the military and the police (the only people who still have guns) to keep the people down.