Seeing as how gun control has become a rather popular issue over the last few months, I thought I'd throw out my two cents. As always, keep in mind that this is just my opinion, the way my mind has wandered while pondering the subject at hand, and is not even close to a doctoral thesis.
So... The Second Amendment.
As I recall, the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, or at least the part that everyone is concerned with, states that all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. Let's start with that shall we? The sentence itself is simple and to the point. It grants anyone who is a citizen of this nation the right to keep and bear arms. It doesn't say only hunters can have weapons. It doesn't say the only weapons that can be kept are hunting rifles, archery sets, or swords. It says specifically "arms". Neither does it delineate the maximum number of rounds a person may have available to them while bearing said arms. Seems clear enough to me. Which is what leads me to the next part of this entry.
Many people today are trying to limit the "arms" that we as citizens can keep and bear to those used in either hunting or sports. For justification, they try to say that the only reason the second amendment exists was to ensure that those who hunted for a living could continue to do so. Those who believe such are sorely mistaken. The entire purpose of the Bill of Rights is to ensure that, no matter what, the government would never have the power to turn the populace into a nation of slaves under tyrannical rule. Why else would they specifically guarantee the right to free speech, a free press, and the right to peaceably assemble? The second amendment was essentially put into place to ensure that we as individuals could defend ourselves should the government ever take it upon itself to use armed soldiers to force its will upon us. After all, who in their right mind would ever attack a place in which everyone could and did carry some kind of weapon. In fact, a rather prominent Japanese Admiral during WWII once said, and I'm paraphrasing, that to invade mainland America would be suicide, as there would be a gun behind every blade of grass. So it stands to reason that the same would be true if the Federal government decided to try anything. Hence the reason the second amendment was put into the Bill of Rights in the first place.
Another argument that a lot of anti-gun types are trying to use in order to circumvent the second amendment, is that the men who wrote the second amendment, never envisioned the kinds of weapons available to the average citizen today. That if they had, they would never have left the amendment as open ended as it is. I believe that they made the second amendment so vague, saying only "arms", and not specifying specifically which arms they meant, was precisely because they had no idea what kinds of weapons would be developed in the future. The men who wrote the Bill of Rights were smart men. They were students of history. They knew how weapons had evolved over the centuries from swords, to bows and arrows, to crossbows, to cannon, and on to rifles and pistols. They knew that weapons would continue to evolve in ways they could never imagine. With that said, how could they possibly limit the second amendment to a specific type of weapon or weapons when they would most certainly be rendered obsolete over time. More to the point, they knew that, as weapons evolved, the government would make sure their troops had the most advanced, top of the line equipment. After all, how could they hope to stand against foreign foes if they didn't keep up with advancements in weapons technology. Imagine if our soldiers had gone into WWII with nothing more than muskets. And since the second amendment was meant to give the populace the means by which to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, would it make sense to limit the citizens to those same muskets while the government was carrying M-16's? This, in my opinion, is why they were intentionally vague about the arms we as citizens were given the right to keep.
With all of that, how can anyone in government, or even as a citizen of this nation be able to sit back and say that it's alright if the government takes away our right as citizens to protect ourselves by whatever means necessary? How can they allow anyone to say that we should only be allowed firearms that meet a certain description, and can only have so many shots at a time? What if the government became so corrupt that they sent troops to your door to take you in, or even kill you, simply because you spoke your mind? Shouldn't you be able to stand your ground for as long as possible in defiance of tyranny? Shouldn't you be able to join together with your fellow citizens to overthrow those who would seek to turn us into naught more than slaves to a central ruling body, using force to overcome the wall of soldiers they would use to protect themselves? Shouldn't we be able to protect what is ours by right, when the government seeks to take it by force?
How can we possibly do all that, if the government reduces us to bearing slings and arrows, while they carry guns and bombs?
The second amendment was written for our protection. If we forget that and allow it to be stripped away little by little, our once great nation will not survive.
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