When They Kick Out Your Front Door, How You Gonna Come?

In a recent post, The Troll said:

The United State's Supreme Court is poised to make their most important ruling on Second Amendment issues in several decades. The basic issue is whether the Second Amendment will be considered an individual right or a collective right granted to the States to maintain militias.

Huh. Well. I for one find it incredibly difficult to believe that the framers of our government would have placed the right to bear arms second only to the right to religion, free speech, a free press, peaceable assembly, and petition of the government for a redress of grievances if they didn't in fact believe it an individual right.

But some of us don't think so. Some of us think guns are dangerous. Some of us think only those who know "best" should control them. Because if they don't, then our society will quickly devolve into a bunch of mullet-headed morons gleefully toting guns into every shopping mall, school yard, and barroom.

Well, let me assure you: Those of us who believe the Second Amendment is indeed about the right to bear arms as an individual also believe it is NOT a sanction of vigilantism.

No, really. I, and millions of gun owners just like myself, are perfectly happy to concede to our local, state, and federal government their right to establish a police force, system of courts, and military to ensure our safety from the criminal actions of both our fellow citizens and from attack and invasion from foreign entities. It is one of the very few justifiable reasons, IMHO, for the existence of government, and I will gladly pay my taxes to support this system.

The Second Amendment is not about that kind of defense.

What the Second Amendment is about, is the right of each of us as individual citizens to protect ourselves against abuse by the government itself. That militia it talks about? That's you and Moi. Each and every one of us is a member of this militia because we the people are ultimately the only ones who can guarantee our freedoms. Therefore I believe it is the duty of each and every adult in this country to own a firearm as a symbolic warning to governments with tyranny on their minds: YOU cannot forcefully and without justification take away my right to my life, my liberty, and my pursuit of happiness.