Couldn't many gun owners just be educated, kind, and law abiding sportsmen who target shoot or hunt and don't want the government infringing on rights and taking away people's property?

Gun haters make the it sound like all crime could be solved with gun bans. What's the deal with them anyway? Are they a bunch of idealist crazies living in their own fantasy world; or are they elitists who think the Constitution is a living breathing document that should be changed to mirror their fantasy world?

no it just has no relevance to the operative part of the amendment.

also regulated in the time and context it was written means organized or maintained as in a state of preparedness, not government controlled. even so, it matters not as it clearly states the people have the right to have firearms, not the militia.

is english really that hard for you statist to understand.

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.

it clearly says the right of the people, not the right of the militia

Thanks for the tip! Will call in support of our President!

And I hope you were protesting when the last one put in place 'The Patriot Act.'

and this is what Obama is trying to get through people like you(and I mean people like you with no offense)

he has clearly stated that "There is no law or set of laws that will curve all violence"; are we to sit here and when events like Sandy Hook happen and say to the parents; "Hey sorry for your lost but hey, what can you do?" Obama went on to say "If these laws can save even one life, why not try?" this debate is not an attack on guns but a way to increase saftey for the public.

the only gun laws im in favor of, and ones that will do something, arent these knee-jerk reactions of "we have to do something".

im in favor of better background checks, meaning getting more up to date infor on the person, updating records, etc. better mental health screening for the backround check. making sure people dont slip through that shouldnt own a gun, making sure felons dont get guns.

and the law that will save the most lives, ban "gun free zones"

Well then, you might not be happy to know that the Supreme Court had already been give a chance to rule on the banning of assault weapons...and they refused to even hear the case.

http://rense.com/general17/supremecourtrejects.htm

There was no dissent among the 9 justices, and the law was upheld. I can't even find any legal challenges to the federal ban, so it would seem that these laws are in fact quite constitutional.

Horrible comparison. Not even worth offering a proper rebuttal. 

The ignorance demonstrated by that statement is astounding. The statement itself is also very, very troubling, to the rest of the world.

How do so many of you Americans actually believe this crap? You know those two countries that you Americans love to tout as demonstration that guns aren't the problem, but the solution? You know, Finland and Israel? Both of them require all youth to be in the army, and both restrict gun access to those who are fully trained and actually current members of the army. America does neither of these.

Meanwhile, here in Australia, we went through a similar situation to you - we had a gun massacre that was the tipping point for the issue. The leader at the time was conservative (John Howard), and he immediately put in place various forms of gun ban, set up a gun buyback system to get the guns off the street, and was supported by the vast majority of Australians.

Since guns were banned, gun violence has decreased dramatically. It dropped in the year that the ban came into force. It continued to drop after that.

Australia is probably the country most similar to America in most ways. And when we had gun control introduced, it worked. The government didn't suddenly start trying to become a dictatorship, democracy continued along exactly the same path it was already on.

You seem to love the second amendment. The thing is, that amendment was written in a very different time, a world that was very different to what we have today. And back then, I'll say this immediately - the concept of an "assault weapon" was completely alien to them, in a time when a gun shot once, and then you had to manually reload by adding the gunpowder and the bullet from the front of the gun.

What's more, why do you think guns will save you if the government really wanted to oppress you? The government has access to bombs, artillery, and military vehicles. In countries like Libya, they had full access to weapons, but it still took decades for them to rise up, and when they did it, they needed outside help to do it. In the modern world, the second amendment is useless for the purpose you claim it is most important for.

And a careful reading of the second amendment makes it pretty clear that it protects the right to bear arms specifically for the purposes of defending the nation from attack, not for defending the people from an oppressive government. And a modern reinterpretation of it would be to interpret it as the right for the police to bear arms in defense of the people from lawbreakers - remember, "police" didn't exist back when your constitution was written; one could almost argue that your "forefathers" were smart enough to foresee such an organisation.

Meanwhile, when one plots gun ownership rates against gun violence rates by country, one discovers a solid trend: more gun ownership correlates positively with gun violence. If one were to control for the nature of the gun ownership (say, by limiting it to "gun ownership by citizens who are not active members of the police or military"), the trend would be much stronger still.

The facts, quite simply, are not on your side.

I'm going to use the same method as you, but adjust the emphasis just slightly, because it makes a huge difference to how you read it.

"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."

It doesn't give the right of people to keep and bear arms, but THE PEOPLE. Every time "the people" is used in the US constitution, it's used to refer to the country, as in "we the people". Otherwise, it would have said something like "...the right of individuals to..."

What this means is that guns will not be exclusive to the proper military. This does not mean that it must be available to all. The original intent was for the people of America to be able to come to the aid of the military in times of war - that the military would not be maintained at war-like levels during peace time. Hence "well-regulated militia". A modern interpretation of the amendment would be to permit guns to the police and to other such well-regulated people whose bearing of guns would ensure sensible security.

Also note the comma after "arms". It changes the meaning, and if you don't see that, then perhaps YOUR understanding of English is the faulty one (other than the obvious issue with your lack of punctuation and failure to capitalise "English", "It" and "Is"). The sentence quite clearly states, removing the modifying clauses between the commas, that "a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed". It does NOT say that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

No, it really doesn't. Behold the Third Amendment in all its comma-tastic glory:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

That still means exactly what it says: "The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court."