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Originally Posted by 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. |
Realizing I'm opening a can of worms, I'm not sure it is clear that there was a consensus view that the 2dA was designed to provide for the capability of an insurgency against the government, and I seem to recall reading things to the contrary. The language in the 2A speaks about the militia being necessary to the security of a free state, which most logically is read that the militia is necessary for the defense of the nation. You could read it to mean that the militia is necessary to keep the people free from Govt tyrrany (though the language speaks of free state, not free people). Some viewed the militia as being necessary to maintain order in the nation, such as when Washington called out the militia to put down an insurgency (the Whiskey rebellion) not fight for it.