[Eastbound]

Yes, though I was speaking of the federal government specifically. The people, through their offical state designees of course, are the federal government.

The state is another matter, though I contend that if the federal government recognized the right of the people of the states to keep and bear arms and that right should not be infringed by the federal government, why do the people allow the state to turn right around and infringe those rights? Don't state gummints have a republican form of government that is controlled by the people of the state?

Since when did the people of any state give the state power to disarm the population or to get into gun control? They didn't. The state assumed that power over a period of time and the people didn't object too loudly -- or 'effectively.'

Seems kind of stupid for the people to tell the federal government not to mess with the people's right to keep and bear arms, and then the people turn right around and allow the state to do what it didn't allow the federal government to do.

[Dead Corpse]

There are actually quotes from the Founders speaking on exactly this subject. It was considered silly to even worry about it as the State had no power to legilsate away and enumerated Right. Still, the BoR was to be a basic list. More protections, not limits, were to be enacted as each State saw fit.

They have turned that 180 over the last 100 or so years.