[Jeff Head]

I believe it is an unalienable right...the right to self defense. My feeling is that the founders understood that the right extended to adults. A parent had the right to extend that privelege to their children by way of instruction and practise...but until that child becomes responsible for themselves it reamins a privelege.

I also believe it is clear that as long as someone is incarcerated and has not paid their debt to society for a crime, then they clearly are not armed. If they have paid that debt to the point of being allowed to be free...then with that freedom should come the ability to keep and bear amrs...I believe such a right is indispensable to freedom. If it is not felt that they are capable of exercising that right, then I submit they have not paid their debt and should not be at liberty (free) amongst the rest of us.

[HawaiianGecko]

I think you and I are basically in agreement on this subject. You aren't reading meanings in my posts that are not there. The right to self defense is a good argument that is hard to dismiss with direct argument. However, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness also appears on the surface to be an unalienable right. But I wouldn't suggest eliminating capital punishment (life), prisons (liberty) or marriage (pursuit of happiness :-))

Not wanting to get hung up on the word unalienable there have been 5 USSC decisions directly concerning the second amendment and 35 USSC decisions that involved the 2nd, and there is a massive amount of modern legal scholarship concerning this amendment and it is unquestioned that, five of the Renquist court Justices have written an opinion in which the Second Amendment is considered an individual right granted by the constitution, and three more Justices have joined such an opinion.

There is also an even more massive scholarship of USSC opinion on the First amendment and the Justices through the years have mostly referred to the right to assemble and free speech as a right that existed 'prior' to the existence of the US constitution. In my interpretation, that's an unalienable right, while the right to bear firearms is a constitutional right.

I nearly agree with your thoughts on felons who have paid for their crime. There are lot's of felonies that aren't violent and don't involve the use of weapons. But, I do understand why the laws concerning felons are the way they are. It's easier to define "all felons" rather than try to nuance who's good and who's bad. I think we would both agree that a poll of Americans would leave the ex-con with rocks to defend himself.

I'll be the first to admit that if a thousand screaming Arabs were charging me, the first people I'd throw a gun to would be the crazy guy and the felon that actually shot someone in anger.

I grew up in the gun industry and know all the arguments. In my opinion there are advocates of gun banishment, advocates of arming everyone including their Brittanies, and a very large group in favor of the guns with sensible restrictions.  Now let's think about that for a minute. One group in favor of NO guns and two groups in favor of guns. People in the industry believe that if you force that segment in the middle to choose between the extremes, we'll lose them completely.