You guys really, really misunderstand the Founding Fathers.
No....not really.
Someone does.
Guess who?
A militia in their eyes was not a neighborhood clan of guys with guns running to fight the tyrants of government. It was the right of each state to have a militia or national guard as the case presently is.
Nope, not even close.
The state national guards are adjuncts of the Standing Army, not militias in the sense used by the people that wrote and ratified the Second Amendment.
By allowing for this provision, the founders built in a security to states rights from the federal government they hesitantly created. But all of the good ol'boys envision the founders thinking of the 80's movie Red Dawn, where average people run to the streets to defeat the Reds!!!!
You could try reading the Federalist Papers, sometime.:roll:
try #28.
"All candid and intelligent men must, upon due consideration, acknowledge that the principle of the objection is equally applicable to either of the two cases; and that whether we have one government for all the States, or different governments for different parcels of them, or even if there should be an entire separation of the States,
there might sometimes be a necessity to make use of a force constituted differently from the militia, to preserve the peace of the community and to maintain the just authority of the laws against those violent invasions of them which amount to insurrections and rebellions. "
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense.
The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair."
Do you have the right to own a tank or a F-16? No, so you will not have equal force with your M16, will you?
Tanks? Yes, I do have the right. Read the second Amendment sometime. It doesn't say "guns", it says "arms".
Airplanes? The Constitution reserves the authority to issue letters of marque to Congress. One can thereby assume that it would extend reasonably to any concept of "air piracy" also.
Having tanks and M16's would be sufficient to get the politicians back in line.