The US Constitution does not create a right to carry any weapon, anywhere, any time. It creates a right to keep and to bear, under defined circumstances. The Second Amendment speaks only to possession. Nothing in the Constitution gives anyone the right to sell, transfer or indeed discharge firearms (e.g., you cannot fire away in a public park).

The Second Amendment is not the only element of the Constitution and broader legal structure bearing on the issue of firearms. There are already strong anti-gun regulations across the country: Most states impose greater penalties for crimes committed at the point of a gun. All these are defensible under public safety laws of the states and/or under the purposes defined in the Preamble.

Section Eight of Article I gives Congress the power to regulate interstate (and as increasingly held, other) commerce. There is thus something of a conflict between Article One of the original and the Second Amendment here. Regulation of sales and interstate transfer of firearms does not necessarily impede "keeping" or "bearing" arms one already has, but it can surely regulate how, when, where and whether one can buy or sell them.

The idea that the framers, or any framers, would have considered it a good idea that nut cases and ill-educated rubes should have machine guns is ridiculous. As to overthrouwing tyranny, no state would create the means of its own destruction. In any event, NONE of the self-appointed or would-be political heroes of recent years, Oswald, Sirhan, Ray, McVeigh, Nidal... attacked military installations; instead they all murdered children and other unarmed persons. If you want to overthrow the US, have the courage to go attack Fort Sill; otherwise, shut up.

No one except a narrow fringe advocates banning all firearms, least of all myself. Personally, I'd estimate it's equal to a tiny fraction of the number who want to carry machine guns to the high school dance. It's not about politics (partisan or other), traditions or safety. Better to help create reasonable, generally accepted, common sense regulations - principally on sales and transfers - than to block all regulation and await the date on which seizure becomes the only remaining viable solution to increasing violence and destructive power.

Recall the scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird" in which Atticus Finch shoots a rabid dog and then goes on, hardly breaking stride, to challenge old-style Southern racism. There is no inevitable connection or causation between liberalism or conservatism. Whichever way you think I lean or I think you lean, we have a sacred duty to have one another's interests and aspirations in mind and not to impose our views mechanistically on others.

As the philosopher Joan Rivers might ask, "can we talk?"