Is there any reasonable argument that the second amendment is actually a good thing?

[Alva Goldbook]

81. Yes, the 2nd Amendment IS a Good Thing, and the OP is Completely Wrong.

The OP is wrong. The original intention of the 2nd amendment was to allow for the private ownership of arms.

You can see this everywhere if you do a little bit of research into the topic. When this country was founded, each state had their own Constitutions and their own Bill of Rights. So if you look at the Constitutions of the 13 original states, you will find their own "2nd amendment" provisions, with different wording, which makes it clear that it was intended to provide a right of the private ownership of guns.

For instance, the Constitution of my home state of Virginia has such a provision in it's Bill of Rights, in Section 13.

That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

http://constitution.legis.virginia.gov/

Now, while the baggers may ramble incoherently about tyranny, this was a real concern of the Founders, who had just escaped the tyranny of the British. In Federalist #46, Madison made it very clear that the very purpose of the 2nd amendment was to prevent a tyrannical federal government, and to guarantee that the people had the means by which they could keep and protect their rights.

Madison said that a time may come when "the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition." Therefore, "Let a regular army...be formed", but if the federal government ever became tyrannical, a militia amounting to millions of citizens "with arms in their hands" and "fighting for their common liberties" "would be able to repel the danger."

Madison said that, "It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops."

Madison went on to say, "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation" would form "a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

Madison explicitly criticized gun control in "the several kingdoms of Europe", whose "governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." But if they did have arms, "the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."

Madison concluded by saying, "Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors."

http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa46.htm