http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010902I rarely agree with the editorial opnions of the Wall Street Journal but in this case they hit the nail on the head and got the issure framed exactly right. As an example:
"The phrase "the right of the people" or some variation of it appears repeatedly in the Bill of Rights, and nowhere does it actually mean "the right of the government." When the Bill of Rights was written and adopted, the rights that mattered politically were of one sort--an individual's, or a minority's, right to be free from interference from the state. Today, rights are most often thought of as an entitlement to receive something from the state, as opposed to a freedom from interference by the state. The Second Amendment is, in our view, clearly a right of the latter sort."