After reading your position pieces, it seems I agree with you on most issues except gun control. If you look at all the rapes, murders and attempted murders in the country, and replace each of those victims with a well trained, law-abiding, individual carrying a concealed weapon, those numbers would be enormously smaller. I believe your misguided attempts to protect us by taking away our guns (yes, that is what gun control does) stems from a mis-interpretation of the phrase "well-regulated". In your position piece, you assume that the government should be a regulating entity for the second amendment. That makes no sense whatsoever. Imagine you are in 1775... the thought process would go something like this:

we want to make sure we have the ability to overthrow the king, so each individual will keep and bear arms
of course, we're going to get permission from the king as to what type of guns we can use against his troops
we need to make sure that each soldier in our army carries only enough powder and shot for 10 rounds. That way we won't put up much of a fight against the kings troops with 200 or 300 shots per soldier.

It doesn't make any sense. A more realistic definition can be found at http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm

The meaning of the phrase "well-regulated" in the 2nd amendment

From: Brian T. Halonen <halonen@csd.uwm.edu>

The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the writing of the 2nd amendment:

1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."

1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."

1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."

1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."

1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."

1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."

The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.

Please look carefully at this and reconsider your well meaning, but ill-conceived positions on restricting our rights to bear arms. The people should not only be armed, but armed with the same capability as the military so that if King Clinton decides he's going to impose martial law, the people and 60% or so of the armed forces with the people would have enough arms to not only put up a fight, but to put him in his place and restore the Republic that was created 224 years ago.