[ithacaartist]

Several things said here are incorrect:

I agree.

The second amendment does not give us a right. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" The second amendment is a law which protects that right.

Your quote is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The second amendment is not a law, but a change(amendment) to the Constitution, along with nine others ratified by congress and the state legislatures. The first two amendments, of 12 in the original bill, were not ratified. Virginian George Mason (of the Mason-Dixon Line) was most vocal about this so-called bill of rights. I'm glad he mostly got his way

Reasonably is subjective. The founding fathers believed our rights were ABSOLUTE.

Reasonable might be subjective--to the unreasonable... It implies that a concept is examined in the light of logic and reason, NOT emotion. This process can be quite objective. To insist that the founding fathers crafted the perfect constitution is negated by the fact that there have been many amendments since. I think they did, however, do a pretty good job setting up a framework that could flex with time, circumstances, and reality. On the other hand, dogma tends to be chiseled in stone, its tenets deemed absolute by its followers.

The second amendment is in the BILL OF RIGHTS. Rights cannot be revoked or modified. You opinion that rights are a matter of politics, popular support and lobby decribes the forms of government in most every other nation. But not America.

Incorrect. The first ten amendments, like all the rest, may be changed by the amendment process set out in the Constitution--2/3 of both houses plus 3/4 of the states' legislatures. Seems the founding fathers considered it a bad thing to force succeeding generations to live by the rules of their forebears, no matter how inappropriate they may be deemed to be. I think you may be confusing our Constitution with the bible or koran, or the North Korean "constitution".

"endowed by their creator" is an eternal truth.

Or it may be theistic gibberish. My mother and father were joint participants in my creation, so I guess I'm lucky enough to have two! Some of the founding fathers were deists, at most. Check out the bible, as Thomas Jefferson re-wrote it. Read a little bit of "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, etc. You'll be amazed at how secular these guys were. The first amendment, for example, protects citizens of all beliefs and dis-beliefs, leaving us all to believe what we wish, or not, without fear of persecution.

David Parker