Its fun to listen to people like BoTox ruminate on the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Regardless of what these intellectually special needs people might like to believe, the 2nd Amendment DOES NOT say "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Rather it says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Leaving aside the inability of people like Clarance Thomas to read and research, the founding fathers were clearly guaranteeing a militia. They had made a conscious decision to NOT maintain a large standing army in that they had unpleasant experiences with such in the person of the British Army. Rather they decided to rely on a small standing army and a large state militia. The army was to serve as a trip wire while the militia could be brought up. This was true up to the 20th Century. The US Civil War was fought (on the Union side anyway) by state militia units. A popular line was "We are here Father Abraham, 100,000 strong!" In 1789 the militiamen brought their personal weapons to militia drill, creating among other problems a logistical nightmare. You had an army where your neighbor may very well be unable to give you musket balls should you run short. His might well not fit your weapon! Also the weapons with which the founding fathers were familiar were flint lock muzzle loading weapons with a lethal range of something like 100 to 500 yards. Not fully automatic weapons with a rate of fire on the order of 1000 rounds per minute.
The NRA maintains we need AK47's as great sporting weapons. That's true only if the deer start carrying Uzi's! Neither the AK47 nor the M16 are very good sporting weapons. And for the record I have both of them.
Although dissapointed in Obama will I vote for him? Looking at what the Republicans are scraping off the bottom of their collective shoes, my vote for Obama is a certainty!