While I agree that our gun rights are crucial I don't see them as more or less important than our right to free speech and religion nor our protections against search and seizure.
All the guns in the world won't help you a damn bit if Uncle Sam decides to raid your home because someone claimed you smoked a joint.
Yes, but the thing is, of ALL the rights we are supposed to be guaranteed under the Constitution, I don't think any is as dangerously threatened as the RKBA.
As I have read, in EVERY SESSION of CONGRESS, there is introduced -- although it doesn't go very far at all -- a bill to REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
Has there EVER been a bill introduced whose purpose was to repeal the 1st, 4th, 5th amendment? While I don't know for certain, I would bet everything I have that the answer is NO.
So the 2nd Amendment gets my vote every time, and will until it is truly and properly safeguarded. Then we can work on fixing other stuff that is next in line.
...And I have never heard of someone's house getting raided "because someone claimed [they] smoked a joint." Don't you think that's hyperbole, and therefore not really valid?
And don't you think that the right to keep and bear arms is much more threatened -- and much less widely supported by the populace -- than the right to protection from warrantless search and seizure?
I think that there would be a huge groundswell against repeal of the latter right if it were repealed by law or amendment. So it is less in need of ardent and vigilant protection, at the moment.
-azurefly