THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

"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"

I realize that this Amendment has been defined and redined and litigated and argued about for decades. The money and therefore political influence that has been used to "sell" the idea that this Amendment should allow a virtually unlimited amount of guns (of increasing fire power) to flood our society (and 300 million population) in the 21st century is a truly obscene concept. By simply reading the full text it seems apparent what the actual intent of the Amendment was when it went into effect.

After studying the formation of the U.S. Constitution and the minutes and letters associated with the Conventions that took place throughout the creation of the "sacred" documents that are still the "guiding light" over 200 years later, the "founding fathers and those who actually debated and put forth the text, were only concerned about the "protection" of the individual States from a National or Federal Government intruding (by force) on the rights and survival of each State. An interesting side note is that during the debate and passage of the 14th Amendment in 1866, there was in fact a "military" takeover of the State legislatures of 7 southern States in order to insure passage of that important Amendment. That aside, the debate and decision for the text of the Second Amendment was not centered around the concept that all individuals should be able to "keep and bear" a limitless amount of "arms" that had nothing to do with the support of a "well regulated militia". Those honored individuals certainly would have had no reasonable expectation of the outrageous number of unnecessary weapons that would end up in citizens possession so far into the future, and based on the caution and care they attempted when creating all the documents and considering the character of those individuals, it is a huge stretch of the imagination to believe that they would have promoted the situation we have today.

If the actual intent of the Amendment was solely to state and secure the "right" of "the people" to "keep and bear arms", why wasn't the Amendment simply written as; The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed"? The answer is that the Amendment was not created with the last part alone as it's primary intent. There was a specific reason that the text of the Second Amendment began; "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". The reason (as noted above) was to provide for an organized militia to assist each free State a protection from the national government. Since the "security of a free State" relative to any threat from the Federal Government doesn't exist in the 21st century (at least not yet), the reality is (and has been for many years) that the Second Amendment is actually a mute and irrelevent document.

The Second Amendment, like so many of the our original (though well intrended) doctrines, is outdated and has very little practical application in a society and a world so vastly different from the one that existed when it was created. At some point, a case for reason must take center stage and the "myth" that has been perpetrated by groups like the NRA and many others may be exposed. The U.S. Constitution has withstood the test of time in fine fashion to be sure, but it has also been manipulated and abused and mis-interpreted to dangerous levels by individuals or groups for their own political or personal motivations. This was also one of the great fears the writers of the documents had while debating the text and the "future" as seen in the late 18th century. If intelligent and concerned citizens of the United States of America circa 2006 actually believe that the "right" to a limitless amount of "arms" (guns) should be a sacred "right" after fully considering the impact and effect this "right" has had and continues to have on the lives (and deaths) of so many people, then a new vote and a new Amendment should be initiated to validate this belief as of this time and not be held hostage to an outdated and questionable document from so long ago.

It really is Time To Think AGAIN!