The Second Amendment is controversial and deserves to be. These were men who just overthrew their British government, violently. They were maltreated, but their government was far from the most tyrannical at the time. In 1775, you'd rather be an average American colonist (healthier, richer, taller, more literate) than an average European. Now the Irish... they had something to complain about regarding British tyranny. For the Americans, it was more gray. They had to "invent" the right to overthrow an oppressive or ineffective government because that's exactly what they were doing.<p>The Second Amendment <i>is</i> the right to violently oppose government if it becomes tyrannical and violent, and it's the right to use the most effective weapons available. (In 1789, they were muskets and swords. Problem: in 2012, they're much more powerful and frequently used for illegal and harmful purposes.) It's a bizarre construct, because it's unclear where the line between personal violence (objectively illegal) and overthrow (which would be treated as illegal, even if it's held as abstractly legitimate) is. We also learned in the 1860s that this whole idea (of legitimate overthrow) is extremely dangerous.<p>In 2012, governments are less powerful. We have a relatively libertarian government, despite protest to the contrary. Consequently, there is absolutely no good reason for a violent revolution against in the US against the government. (Corporations, especially in the multinational theater, require a separate debate.) In fact, we have a legitimate, effective mechanism for firing bad government officials and the problem is that <i>we don't use it</i>. Incumbent politicians have more job security (< 2% firing rate per year) than Silicon Valley software engineers. That's on us.<p>I agree that the best way to "revolt" against bad government is to use nonviolent tools to delegitimize incompetent or crooked leaders. Right now, the political structures that exist to enable that (periodic elections, removal from office by the people) work. They work well, and no one is violently preventing them from doing so, so violence is neither necessary nor morally acceptable. What we should be doing is using legitimate means (e.g. Internet) to remove incompetent leaders from office. If, however, the U.S. turned into Syria (which is extremely unlikely) I'd disagree.<p>The problem right now is that a gun that is fired on a person in the US is, statistically, more likely to be used in suicide, by accident, or on an innocent person, than on a criminal. We don't have a tyrannical government, nor do we have that much crime.<p>Ultimately, I'd say that "government" itself doesn't have the right to make certain firearms illegal, but that the people have the right (as an aggregate) to give up that right and to take it back. Personally, I'm willing not to have the right to own an AK-47 (seeing as I don't have one, and have no desire ever to own one) if it will prevent senseless massacres like last week's. But the distinction is important. The people are <i>giving up</i> the right to have one, in exchange for increased safety.