[RedMonqey]

I do think I should be able to be as well armed as the typical infantryman but I’m ahead of the courts on that one.

That is my opinion as well. I believe the original founders believed the nation needed men that could be "battled ready" if the need arisen, whether to defend the nation against foreign or domestic threat.

This meant at the least the abilities that an common soldier would need. Thus an M-16 would be as common today as an musket would have been in their Revolutionary era.

Cannons would have required special training and were expensive thus not an common item every soldier would carry (as would nuclear weapons)

I don't believe the Constitution would be "hostile" to the concept if common soldiers are nuclear armed but, as a practical matter, it is pretty much an moot point.

Now when laser "pistols" become practical, I want one(lol)

[William Tell]

RedMonqey said: "Cannons would have required special training and were expensive thus not an common item every soldier would carry ..."

The "Shot Heard Round the World" was fired outside Boston on April 19th, 1775. The regular army troops which carried out the fateful raid on Lexington and Concord were dispatched from an occupied city which was being punished by the monarchy for prior misbehaviors.

After the outbreak of open hostilities, the rebels, our Founders, found it necessary to send groups of militia to Fort Ticonderoga to take cannons by force from the government forces protecting the fort. These cannon were dragged through the countryside to Boston where they permitted the rebels to expel the King's forces from the city.

The Second Amendment could not possibly be intended to force future rebels to have to start hostilities against a tyrannical government from a position of weakness that would exist if the possession of cannons were denied to the people.