Amendment Two

Much as night follows day, discussions of the second amendment follow a regular cycle sustained by bad arguments from both sides of the gun ownership issue. 

Gun lovers maintain that the right to own guns is absolute.  Some equate it with the right to overthrow their elected government by force. (As if a bunch of rich gentlemen writing a constitution would be sure to include the right to come shoot them and take their property.)  No right is absolute. We do understand that it is illegal to own a machine gun without getting a special permit. In other words, the right to own a gun is limited by laws we have passed. The Supreme Court had always said so. Case closed.

Gun opponents claim that the second amendment gives only militias the right to bear arms, as if the founding fathers were so stupid they thought it important to specify that an army could bear arms. 

The right to bear arms exists, but it is a regulated right.  The only thing left to talk about is what the regulations ought to be.