U.S. Ctizens Have And Ought To Have The Right To Bear And Keep Arms

First, thank you for forgiving my ignorance of this process and for allowing me to participate in this little soiree. For the sake of the voters, and because it is not necessary to be otherwise, I shall do all I can to exercise brevity in my rebuttal.The Second AmendmentAs you already posted this US Constitutional afterthought in its entirety, I will refrain from doing likewise and instead thank you for supporting my argument.The Second Amendment is quite specific in its purpose - protection of life, liberty and so forth through the individual state's ability to form and regulate militias when necessary.Here's the problem with your position - the states lost this ability with the formation of The National Guard, which is a joint venture of The Department of Defense (Federal), US Army (Federal) and US Air Force (Federal). While each of the 54 individual organizations which comprise The National Guard are called militias, are paid by the state or territory to which they belong, and can be called by the executive branch of that state or territory into service in the event of a natural disaster, they are, in every other way, under the purview and control of the US Federal Government, and thus comprise a large-scale, centrally controlled standing army with their affiliated brethren in the US Army, US Air Force, et al.Also, as a side note, and one which illustrates that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution no longer applies, there is not one single member of The US National Guard who uses their personal firearm in service of the country, and this is because that practice is prohibited.The Founders WOULD NOT Support This:You are correct that the founders were all very much supportive of white land owners possessing arms. In fact, it was less of a right than it was a responsibility of every able bodied, white male land owner between the ages of 16 and 60 to not only own a firearm, but also to be proficient in its use.What you failed to note, however, was the original intent of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, or more precisely, it was the specific intent that you failed to mention. The Founding Fathers, both those in the Anti-Federalist and Federalist contingents, feared two forces for tyranny more than any others - Large, Private Banks and Large, Centrally Controlled Standing Armies.The Second Amendment to the US Constitution was specifically designed to prevent the latter from ever developing, but as I have already noted above, a Large, Centrally Controlled Standing Army is exactly what this country finds itself with, and therefore the Second Amendment has completely failed in its original intent, and has been constantly failing in that intent since the end of WWII when the Department of War was replaced with the Department of Defense and The National Guard was established as being under Federal Control.Don't take my word for it, though. Instead, let's go to the person who wrote the 2nd Amendment, and the rest of the 1st 10 Amendments to the US Constitution more commonly known as "The Bill of Rights" for his take on the subject:The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. - James Madison (in a speech to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, 1787)Madison further expounds on this precept in The Federalist Papers #41, in which he writes on how to use the appropriations process to limit the possibility of a standing military force, and in Federalist #46, he discusses specifically how an armed citizenry will be an even greater force to this effect:...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.The US Constitution is a social contract, and like any other contract, there must be a meeting of the minds for it to be valid. Because we are no longer using the 2nd Amendment for its intended purpose, and both sides to this part of the contract are in breach, the amendment should be immediately repealed and a new US policy on firearms ownership should be added as the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution to replace it.Early Commentaries Only Support Your View for the Purposes I Have Stated AboveIs there any escape from a large standing army, but in a well disciplined militia? - Justice Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States)What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.... Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment [ I Annals of Congress at 750 {August 17, 1789}]) Early Congress Also Only Supports Your View Under The Purpose I Have StatedNo need to add anything to what you wrote, as you made my argument for me in that section.Like All Rights, They Are Not Absolute, And The Courts Were Often Times Split On Gun Control IssuesPresserr v. Illinois (1886) This is one of the two post-Civil War 19th Cent. cases addressing the 2nd amendment, and one which directly supports my position. In this case Presser was part of a citizen militia group, (the Lehr und Wehr Verein) and was caught parading through Chicago with a group of other men, carrying guns. He was convicted of violating an Illinois law making it a crime to be a part of an armed unit parading or existing w/o a permit from the Governor. (Presser got a $10 fine). He claimed the law violated his rights under the 2nd amendment, among other things. The court disagreed, and upheld the law and his conviction. Basically they decided that the 2nd amendment was not a right to form or be part of a militia. It related to people (individuals, it seems) bearing arms for the use of the US government, and as part of the militia as called up by the government.Conclusion:The right of the Citizens of the United States to bear arms, unencumbered by laws from the legislature, has one purpose, and one purpose only - National Defense. Since no private citizen uses, or has used since the early 1950s, the firearms they purchase, personally, for the purpose of defending our great nation, the 2nd Amendment serves no legitimate purpose and the rights enumerated within it are therefore, naturally, void.SourcesAll noted above