I actually saw it on FB a while back. It was the comment or heading of a link that led to an article. I thought it was great, so, I use it when ever appropriate.

I might add that I wish the media and the government would learn the difference between an assault weapon and one that is not. The M15 is not an assault weapon even though it looks like one, the M16 is. The AK47 is, but the Colts six shooter isn't. Regardless, the media reports that any crime is always committed with an assault gun. It wouldn't surprise me if they called the bomb used in Boston an assault bomb.

The initiation of force is generally agreed to be prohibited. Self defense including reacting to threats is different than initiating force.
Criminals with always have access to weapons including firearms. Police aren't usually present when violent crime occurs. The usually come after the crime has been committed.
I reserve my rational right to self protection. I choose to have a gun. Who has the right to deny me this?

again, what is your point?

It is our right to bear arms but we do have multiple versions of standing armies (they are the bigger-better guns) and they threaten to take away not only our guns but other rights as well. To fend off tyranny, we need another means.

make your point-

Good point!

Thank you, I thought I had all I needed and more. I just realized I do not have one specialized for putting food on the table anymore. I've got a few that will work for that just fine, but they are more specialized like the last one you show. Oh well, it's time to go see my arms dealer, Jason.

This post makes me proud to be a gun nut. I was not a nut until the government held up my purchase of a .22 rifle. Even though I went through the process of getting a UPIN. I still had to wait nearly 5 months. After that I started buying everything they would prefer I didn't have. Now that I got all they are trying to outlaw some ammo for them. We are at a point our fore father's warned us about.

Or maybe she was a fan of him. Ahh, a mutual admiration group.

+++

Just as long as it's not "I have a gun and _used_ to have a large ..." ;)

Adding that the primary reason for the second amendment is I have the right to own one to protect myself against the government. Our founding fathers had reason to put the amendment second only to free speech.

I'm not sure I understand your post winterwind. Are you saying that no one has the right to a gun?
If so, there is no excuse needed but there are reasons. I'm sure I speak for many when I say I have no desire to have to use it for protection but I will without hesitation.

Almost all of the comments are good and valid points favoring gun ownership. Many people believe it was us, the US, that really pushed for this. Before we were even a country a English politician said all that had to be said in defense of gun ownership. His name was James Burgh and he passed in 1775. I'm quoting "No kingdom (that's all they had then) can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses else he lives precariously, and at discretion". Damn, those English really have a way with words. This was a man that had represented a government that we were about to go to war with! I don't think I've seen or heard a better argument in defense of gun ownership. I rest my case. Thanks for giving us this incredible forum to openly discuss our ideas and beliefs.

I didn't real ALL of the comments, but did anyone mention that the framers never wrote a "Bill of Needs". It was a Bill of Rights.

Thanks for the addition Animal, You're right. I like my guns, I like cleaning them, I like shooting them and I like the protection they afford me.

I've only had one occasion to use one in the United States but I'm glad I had it and yes, I would use it without hesitation. I'm 72 and no one gets the chance to assault me which is what the issue was without endangering themselves..

But only to 10. :-)

Need???

To truly understand what the Framers meant, one needs to study the original debates over a citizens' right to bear arms and why free individuals had that right.

Both Federalists and Antifederalists believed that the main danger to the republic was tyrannical government and the ultimate check on tyrannical government was an armed population. Both sides not only agreed that the people had a right to be armed, both sides assumed the existence of an armed population as an essential element to preserving liberty.

Valparaiso University Law Professor David E. Vandercoy, puts it this way in his piece on the history of the second amendment, "English history made two things clear to the American revolutionaries: force of arms was the only effective check on government, and standing armies threatened liberty. Recognition of these premises meant that the force of arms necessary to check government had to be placed in the hands of citizens. Because the public purpose of the right to keep arms was to check government, the right necessarily belonged to the individual and, as a matter of theory, was thought to be absolute in that it could not be abrogated by the prevailing rulers...

"...These views were adopted by the framers, both Federalists and Antifederalists. Neither group trusted government. Both believed the greatest danger to the new republic was tyrannical government and that the ultimate check on tyranny was an armed population...The check on all government, not simply the federal government, was the armed population, the militia. Government would not be accorded the power to create a select militia since such a body would become the government's instrument. The whole of the population would comprise the militia. As the constitutional debates prove, the framers recognized that the common public purpose of preserving freedom would be served by protecting each individual's right to arms, thus empowering the people to resist tyranny and preserve the republic. The intent was not to create a right for other governments, the individual states; it was to preserve the people's right to a free state, just as it says."

Clearly, this had nothing to do with muskets or guns of one size or another, and everything to do with citizens' ability to fend off tyranny.

This is why so-called "progressives" favor disarming the citizenry; so that they can't fight back against the progressive dissolution of individual liberty.

Wow, sounds a lot like 2015...

The left doesn't look at any part of the world as it is, only at what they feel that it should be in their utopian fueled day dreams and delusions.

Maybe it's time for the 'adult meat-eaters' in the room to take up the discussion about the already made decision. Believe it or not, Jefferson and the founders had to deal with these same arguments.

This argument will never be resolved. Each and every generation will have to take it up in turn as they have since the invention of the gun or any other martial device or training.

Excellent Heinlein quote, Zen. Don't you just feel that he was a fan of Rand? I do.

The problem is, as Heinlein famously said:

"Most people can’t think, most of the remainder won’t think, the small fraction who do think mostly can’t do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self -delusion— in the long run, these are the only people who count." —Robert A. Heinlein

There are many good reasons to have a gun. I
appreciate the eloquence with which people have
expressed them. But the proper answer to the
government (not that it would accept it) is,"It is my
right, and it's none of your **** business."