I read only the first half (or so) of the 300+ replies on this thread (and found quite enough there to which to respond), so if I’m being repetitious of the last half of the responses, apologies in advance.
Pitchfork, two seemingly simple (yet containing profound ramifications) comments that you made are begging to be examined:
(1) The constitution of course only has power when it is interpreted and implemented by the Court.
(2) Second ammendment types seem obsessed with the idea that they might find in some document the 'slam dunk' quote that will somehow alter the fact that the constitution is--for all its quality--an ambiguous document.
(1) The Bill of Rights, in particular, is a piece of paper which does not grant rights to anyone -- nor does it rely on any court to empower it. It is primarily a delineation of God-given rights, and a blueprint for how best to preserve them. The court's role is simply to see to it that man-made laws do not supercede those outlined God-given liberties. The court empowers nothing. We simply enjoy the exercise of our God-given rights, as guaranteed under the Constitution, and the court makes decisions in those cases in which some men see gray areas. Please ... despite the fact that the courts have usurped far more power than was ever intended them, don't declare that their purview includes empowering the very document under which their meager powers are defined.
That a teacher of American civilization would assert that the Constitution (and the pre-existing rights that it enumerates, and seeks to protect) is powerless without adjudication is beyond ludicrous; it's frightening.
(2) Would you care to define Second Amendment types? Would they be the same as law and order types? Or veterans of foreign wars types? Or American military men currently living in tents in the desert, or sitting on ships in the Persian Gulf, patiently awaiting their orders types? If there was a derrogatory slant to your label (which I infer, considering the words that follow -- obsessed with the idea .... ) you are stereotyping the wrong group in the wrong way, sir.
I happen to be a Second Amendment type who embraces the fact (is obsessed with the idea, from your myopic point of view) that there is no ambiguity whatsoever contained in the Second Amendment. Nor is there any ambiguity contained in the countless founders' writings regarding the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms (and hardly anywhere do they mention crime prevention -- as do you and your fellow anti-Second Amendment types -- as a motive for the ownership of personal arms). You see, they, to a man, were familiar with the taste of government repression of individual freedom. I guess you could say that they were therefore justifyiably obsessed with preventing it. And the Second Amendment (note its preeminent place in the amendments list) was, simply put, their way of guaranteeing to us the right to self defense against a government gone awry.
Strangely enough, our Founders' obsession with the idea that those Americans who followed in their footsteps (you and I included) should maintain the right to keep and bear arms was so strong that they wrote the Second Amendment in completely unambiguous terms so that it would not be convoluted by future generations into a defense of owning weapons in order to protect oneself from the criminal element (a la your own comment, Pitchfork: 'I always thought the 'we need guns to defend ourselves from the government' argument was a load of nonsense and a refuge for those who wanted to avoid a cost-benefit discussion centered on the real issues of crime and violence.)
Well, sir, here's a bit of no-nonsense philosophy on that very subject, handed down by many of the most notable of our founders, and their eloquent contemporaries. Note the constant drumbeat reference to the idea that we need guns to defend ourselves from the government ... not to mention the complete absence of a desire to be armed in order to protect ourselves from crime). Obsessive creatures, those Founders were (Ah but sometimes obsessions can be borne of tough, firsthand experience with tyranny. And the insight obtained therefrom can help to prevent future generations from feeling the same oppressive yoke):
Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them .... Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the cause and necessity of taking up arms -- Continental Congress (1775)
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ....disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes .... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man .... 'Commonplace Book,' 1774-1776, quoting from 'On Crimes and Punishment,' by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country .... James Madison Federalist Papers No. 46 at 243-244
A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves .... and include all men capable of bearing arms .... To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms .... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle .... Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress, Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them .... George Mason, during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788)
What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins .... Elbridge Gerry, Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789
The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms .... Samuel Adams, Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788
The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people .... Fisher Ames, Rep. of Mass., Letter to F.R. Minoe, June 12, 1789
The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them .... Trench Cox (PA), in An American Citizen, Oct. 21, 1787
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American .... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people .... The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms .... Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on a pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power .... Noah Webster, An Examination of The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787
[A]rms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property....Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them .... Thomas Paine, Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775
....but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens .... Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 29
P.S. As for your assertion, Pitchfork, that practially every home in Iraq owns a weapon, can you substantiate that claim with something more reliable than: In the March 11 New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar notes in passing, 'Most Iraqi households own at least one gun.' (A MacFarquhar assertion, made without source, and contained in a New York Times article, registers about a -2 on my credibility meter).
Actually, there are a couple of ambiguities in the Second Amendment: