The Second Amendment

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The Second Amendment has been at the heart of one of the most heated debates about the Constitution in recent memory. This Amendment gives every citizen in the United States the right to own a gun (bear arms).  Did the founders mean for it to include fully automatic machine guns that hadn't even been invented yet? To me the meaning of this amendment changed as soon as the United States decided to keep a large standing military. Before without the ability of the citizens to keep  a gun to protect themselves we might not have been able to fight back against the British or keep the country together during the Civil War. Now with a police force in every town and city, and the most powerful military in the world a citizen does not need a military style weapon. I believe that if you want a gun to protect your family or hunt that is a right that should be protected. However, there is no reason for anyone not in the military to possess a gun that could kill 30 people with one round of bullets.

This video brings up the point (in a funny way) that I made above; the Second Amendment was created right after a war when the people of the country still needed the ability to protect themselves from their enemies because the country could not. I don't believe the Second Amendment was included in the constitution so a guy in Texas could own a fully automatic machine gun. The need for citizens to protect themselves from an enemy invader has passed, it doesn't mean what it may have meant back when the founders included this right into the Bill of Rights.

This picture brings up a point about why the public should have the right to "bear arms". The protection of your family is very important, but I believe protection of an average citizen from anyone with a gun is just as important. I do believe that people should have the right to have a gun in their house to protect themselves from invaders, but I also think that right should be well controlled by the government. Handgun's for protection is alright, a machine gun in your house for protection is not.