I just visited your blog and I liked what I saw.  I am an atheist, own many guns, support equal treatment among socially disparate groups and generally tend too poo poo political correctness.

I don't agree with you, however.  The right to bear arms was actually related to simple survival.  The British banned weapons in fear of militias.  The colonists went "up in arms" because those weapons were used to hunt and protect their families from predators human and not human.  There wasn't police or a standing army, so your weapon was truly your survival.

I truly do not believe the founders thought people would or should shoot government officials.  I also don't believe the founders could have predicted the numbers of people who now exist, the technology that now exists, or the sheer size of our society including the government.

When the founders wrote that clause, they didn't have laser scopes or semi-automatic or automatic weapons.  They had muzzle loaders that required some skill to use.  Hitting the broad side of a barn was a learned skill.  Now, you don't need to have any skill at all - if you miss the first round, the next 100 or so should do it.

I don't care if you own a weapon, I don't care if you shoot yourself or any relatives or strangers on the street.  Just don't shoot me, okay?  But I don't think anyone needs to own a weapon specifically designed for killing or maiming as many people as possible in as short of a time as possible.  If you need to defend yourself, 10-20 shots should do it or you should be spending more time at the range.

I grew up with guns.  My grandparents hunted, my mom had some for fun and for defense.  I don't need one, so I don't own one.

I also have never understood why, when people are angry, they start hurting other innocent people.  The people at the IRS building were doing a job, trying to raise a family, and pay their mortgage.  The people at the IRS building were not responsible for the law or for the penalties attached to not obeying the law.  What is the point of being a terrorist?  Why are you sympathetic with home grown terrorists, but not foreign born ones?

That is not what I meant and you shoulda known it.  In the context of a government official, performing their duty as prescribed by law, no, I don't think the founders believed that person should be shot.  I believe the founders thought if the law was so bad, it should be changed lawfully through the legislature.

Careful who you tease, bub, I'm an old lady and I know how to use it! 

You know, there are people who honestly believe that right now the US government is as - if not more - tyrannical as the British government had been.  Some people have really short fuses.  Is there a cut off point?  Oh, 100 out of 300 million believe, therefore.... Or is it 200, 5000, 30mil before we can justify the use of firearms against our government?  And should we shoot the IRS, SocSec, CIA, NSA, FDA, etc nasty bureaucrats or the politicians who actually make the laws?  What if the politicians who made the original law are all dead?  Do we just start shooting?

I am also ambivalent.  Firearms should be legal.  Firearms should be regulated, because people kill using firearms - not because I think people will not kill without firearms.  It is just harder to use a knife to kill 20-odd people than to use a semi-automatic laser-sighted rifle with 100 round magazine.

And the argument that only criminals will have firearms cuts no ice with me.  Not when it has been shown over and over, that criminals have weapons that were stolen from people who had purchased them legally.  If there are fewer legal firearms, then there will be fewer firearms for criminals to steal.

How to word and implement such a regulation is something I don't know.  Maybe if a group of people argue enough about it, someone will hit on wording that at least doesn't piss off 90% of the rest of the people.

edit: or violate the Constitution.

Promises, promises.

These are all very important points. I wasn't so much justifying the present situation, but the thought behind the original intent.

Personally, I'd like to think we're beyond the use of firearms. Not just philosophically, but also practically.

Yeah. Here in my current town of residence, a cop was recently shot with his own sidearm. He was charged by a naked guy. It seems the cop didn't want to shoot a naked man charging him. The naked guy wrestled away his gun, and shot the cop point-blank.

This was the first on-duty police death in 68 years here.

Well, I do understand that the founding fathers did not always agree with each other. About lots of stuff actually. Which may have something to do with the first amendment (which I think was written by Jefferson BTW).

Certainly Sam Adams expressed publicly that it was out of order to rebel against any government that was not led by a monarch (and therefore the Shays Rebellion was improper). So in his world, you get to resists the king but once that is done, you are stuck with whatever government you get.

Boris Yeltsin would probably agree with Sam Adams on that but Mikhail Gorbachev might beg to differ. BTW: I bring this to the table because you raise the issue of the founding fathers not being able to anticipate fully automatic weapons.

Obviously, they could not have seen that coming. Nor could they have seen the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. What they did foresee was the idea that governments might become tyrannical and need to be forced out of power.

And a less powerful government and lots of weapons around opens you up to a scenario of competing warlords like some periods in Afghanistan or Somalia, or medieval Europe.

The will to power and control is not limited to the current crop of politicians.

Your founding fathers recognized this dilemma, and aimed at a moderately powerful government, but restrained from the worst abuses by a system of checks and balances. 

Someone said something about eternal vigilance and the price of liberty I think. Only way to steer a course between dictatorship and chaos, between a society 'controlled' by the power of position and wealth, or the power of the gun.

I had to go review Ft. Sumter.  I am not a big Civil War buff, and I am mostly not interested in the War Between the States.  To attempt to answer your question:

Democrats are not automatically right and in this case, the democratic party was almost opposite in beliefs to what it is today.  It changed during the 60s and the democrats became more progressive than the republicans - but it wasn't over night.  Which is why the south used to vote almost solid democrat and now votes almost solid republican.

If the winner is right, then in this case- according to you - the democrats were wrong as they were on the losing side of the CW.

I think the southern plantation owners were frightened and scared.  From what I have read they felt they had few choices other than to secede.  But they could have switched from slavery to sharecropping on their own terms and saved a lot of money and blood.  Looking back, I would say the CW was a waste of time, money, and people.  All that carnage and the slaves were freed anyway and the south was a mess when the shooting was over.  All that hate and anger and death accomplished darn little.  But I'm not and never have been a southerner.

So, if you think the CW was worth it as there were so many on the side of secession, do you think if that many physical count or the same proportion of people are yelling for rebellion, that it is time again?  What, 40%, 50%?  The Tea Party is running about 21%.