The Founding Fathers, having just broken away from Great Britain, understood the new federal government they were ratifying might one day become just as tyrannical. If it had the authority to control citizen access to firearms, then it could disarm them, just as the British attempted to do. This would make any attempts to restore liberties futile.

Above is the original reason for the second amendment. It had more to do with keeping Great Britain in check than anything else. The British used guns to break up unruly crowds before and during the Revolutionary War. It was included in the Constitution to keep the British from ever doing that again in the future. In keeping with this, the Americans would need "a well regulated militia" meaning a group of citizens that would drill and train to keep the British in their place similar to an army. More than likely, it means the Minutemen who fought the first battles of the Revolution, namely Lexington and Concord. Popular places were village greens or parade grounds. This is what was meant by the right to bear arms.

Somewhere along the line, that meaning has been altered to fit modern society. Somewhere along the line, it changed so that we have to bear arms in order to protect ourselves from thieves and robbers who break into our homes. Somewhere along the line, it meant that anybody could buy a gun from anyone anywhere. Yes, there are background checks, but there are loopholes that these people slip through. Yes, this person should have had a background check, but somehow, he got the gun anyway. Yes, the gun is legally owned, but my son can borrow it anytime, even though it is not legally his.

I once saw a Sliders episode where the group lands in an alternate universe where guns are not regulated. If they didn't like someone, out came the guns. That's the first thing I thought of when I heard about daily shootings and unrestricted gun violence. This kind of thing has to stop for it will only get worse. We need tighter gun control laws and we need it NOW or else we will shoot ourselves out of existence. I'm all for self defense, but more guns in the world will not stop the violence. Regulation and tighter gun control laws will. This madness has to stop. It doesn't mean that the government is taking your guns away, it just means that we have to regulate who can or cannot get their hands on a gun. It's about where we take our legal guns and learn to control what we do and how we do it. More guns are not the answer.

We seem to be moving further away from the original reason that our forefathers added the second amendment to the Constitution in the first place. The violence has to be controlled because if we don't, there will be no one left in this world to control it. I applaud President Obama for taking a stand on the issue. Someone had to.

My two cents. I didn't mean to offend anyone