Rather, an armed public was advantageous in protecting political liberty. Well, not exactly. The capacity to exercise armed force is a malignancy wherever we find it. To be armed outside of the law is to be armed above the law. When we put ourselves under the laws of this government, the exercise of armed force, separated from simple gun ownership, is authorized by law and ultimately accountable to the people through democratic processes.
Armed force defines sovereignty.
The other choices are anarchy and despotism. The most positive result that can come out of the Oklahoma City bombing is a conceptual basis for addressing gun violence. Gun violence, as much as citizen militias, is a direct consequence of the gun lobby's doctrine. Registration of ownership would provide the basis for establishing, through political processes, legal categories for gun ownership that can effectively remove guns from the lawless and the disloyal. Levinson and the NRA have a doctrine.