I believe wholeheartedly that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. The notion that the Second Amendment deals only with formally organized, funded and managed organizations such as police departments and the national guard is not in keeping with the intent of the Founding Fathers and signers of the Constitution. In their day, state and local militia were formed as needed from private citizens who were required to supply their own arms. Therefore, the right for private citizens to keep and bear arms was fundamental.

Citizens have the unalienable right to protect themselves, their families, and their properties. I believe the best deterrent to violent crime is for perpetrators to know that they may be facing potential victims that are as well armed as the criminals are. Criminals do not get a concealed weapons permit to bring a firearm into a school or a shopping mall and murder people at random. Law-abiding citizens should not need a permit to protect themselves, their children, and their neighbors.

An unarmed populace is at the mercy of a well armed military. Can't happen in the United States? People thought it could not happen in Germany, either. If the German citizenry had been able to fight back when the Nazi storm troopers marched into their neighborhoods and dragged citizens from their homes, the course of 20th Century history might have been much different.