shuamort

The thought process behind the 2nd amendment was to make sure that the government was afraid of its citizens and not the other way around. England had attempted to disarm the colonies to keep it under check. The 2nd amendment was written to make sure that the government never gained so much control over the citizens that it stopped working in their best interests.

Given that, the 2nd amendment is written so the citizens can have enough arms to defend themselves against their government.

So, if you're going to take a strict constitutional review of the 2nd amendment, it should be none.

Now, for the sake of argument, you take the first amendment which states that congress can't abridge the freedom of speech. Altruistic in nature, however, we've found it should be limited as the old yarn about "crying fire in a crowded theater" has shown. The intent of the 1st amendment didn't take these incidents into consideration, but the incidents have shown flaws in the bill of rights.

My answer is that strictly reading the 2nd Amendment, the answer would be none, using judgment and wisdom build up with previous cases, the answer would be limiting gun ownership a bit to exclude things like nuclear arms and the like.