Very different worlds I imagine. I believe the right to gun ownership is guaranteed in the off chance that the government should become so despotic we have no choice but to overthrow it and change it back.
Congratulations on post nr 3000
I have heard that "despotic government"-argument before. I find it a bit paranoid and optimistic (you don't really grap your rifle and meet at the battlefield anymore. Those bloody tanks are in the way). But I still remember the surprice a friend of my mother had when her husband died. Hidden among his remains she found a Stengun (British WW2-weapon). She knew that he had been in the Resistance during the war but they had been maried for 30 years and lived 5+ places, but never had he told he about the weapon and every time they moved to a new place he took the weapon with him and hid it again!! Just in case the Germans returned (or the Russians - my hometown is less that 100 km across the sea from former East Germany).
My anti-state feelings make me very sympathetic to the argument, but as Jens points out it's sort of impractical.
What's so funny is that the weapons almost everyone agree to not allow (tanks, flame throwers, etc) are the ones that should logically be allowed, whereas those almost everyone agree to permit, such as hunting rifles, really have very little to do with the spirit of the 2nd amendment...
Imagine driving through Alabama and looking at all the pretty tanks, heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns in the front yards, sweeet
Though I would somewhat agree with you here I must point out something. The Iraqi insurgents are not using tanks, helicopters, or very heavy artillery. In the original constitution each state was supposed to have a militia (not a national guard). The state was supposed to have control complete over a militia and when the federal govt needed military forces they would request them from the state. In that scenario of the feds became despotic the state could send in the troops.
But my views on how this government should be run are about 100 years out of date, even though I think it's the right way to run it.