[William Sommerwerck]

Gun ownership and use...

The Bill of Rights DOES NOT grant specific rights to citizens. Rather, it
acknowledges particular rights that the government is obliged to respect.
And one of the Amendments says that the enumeration of certain rights does
not disparage others. If you can think of a particular right -- such as
privacy -- not mentioned in the BoR, the government is obliged to respect
it. The ownership and use of weapons for personal use is one such right.

Americans owned and used firearms long before the Revolution. It is a
"natural" right, as are dozens of others, subject only to "reasonable"
regulation for good reasons.

The weird phrasing is probably the outcome of the British having taken
weapons from Americans so they couldn't fight back. As militia members
usually supplied their own weapons...

Both "sides" in this issue are wrong. I've never seen such a lack of common
sense.