The second amendment is clear. Its motivation and intention, as well as its impact could not be more obvious.
The need to protect the public from harm is equally obvious, and very much within the scope and function of government on all levels.
The terrorist is the problem. The depressed guy that opens fire with an assault weapon on a shopping mall or classroom full of innocent people is the problem. Logic says, "Take away his gun and this won't happen." Since we don't know who 'he' is, we have to take the guns away from everyone. This is what gun control advocates seem to think.
And the debate starts there and gets more passionate and less intelligent as the discussion goes on. I have no interest in summarizing the debate here. But I do have some questions:
Could the people who originally wrote the Second Amendment have conceived of a gun that could fire 30 rounds a second and kill a school full of kids in less than 5 minutes? If they could have conceived of such a weapon, would they have written the Second Amendment as is?
Does the Gun Control logic above apply to cars as well? After all, a depressed guy can run over a lot of people quickly. Why aren't we discussing "car control"?
Do the rednecks yelling the loudest about keeping their guns really need the ability to do so much damage so quickly? Honestly, from what I've seen of the most passionate gun control opponents, I don't want them to have guns.
It seems like everyone agrees that we need an equal playing field. Either give everyone a gun so we can shoot each other when we think it's appropriate or take everyone's gun away so that nobody can shoot anybody. Is that really what it comes down to?
If that's the bottom line, I think I vote for 'no guns'. Let's all just get along.