> ... I only mostly really care about the 2nd [Amendment] because I think
> it's hilarious what kind of hypocracy it brings out in people...
Your coinage may be appropriate: hypocracy must mean rule from below, and the authors of the 2nd Amendment surely meant to encourage some rule from below against the vast centralization of authority in the hands of the propertied classes that the Constitution of 1787 represented. As we try to fulfill the original intent of the 2nd Amendment, we should think about it analogously to the rest of the Bill of Rights. Just as we want to extend the principles of the 1st Amendment (e.g.) in ways that would have been literally unthinkable to its authors (such as internet freedom), so we should try to do the same thing with the 2nd -- e.g., by instituting effective local democratic control of the groups authorized to carry arms (which would begin with but by no means be limited to "civilian" review of the police). The 2nd Amendment could be construed as a legal weapon against the FBI, the INS (which has more armed agents than the FBI), or your "professionalized" local police.
--C. G. Estabrook