WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE CONFUSE THE MEANING OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT-including the Supreme Court?

   "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

   I do not understand the confusion regarding this wording. As I read this, a well regulated militia is, well, regulated. Regulations are important to a healthy democracy, important even to prevent the free state from becoming, well, less free. Conservatives do not understand this concept, especially the justices appointed by conservative presidents who's purpose is to keep the court from becoming too free. We can and do, have that discussion regarding how much regulation is healthy. It has been a part of our political life since we were a colony. For a very powerful segment of the conservative party, regulations are to be avoided, unless it comes to people of a color darker than our European ancestry, or women's vagina's. Neo-liberal economists believe in a concept called free-markets, which have become a free-for-all for capitalism. Second amendment activists believe in unregulated firearms ownership, which has allowed states run by conservative state governments to become a free-fire zone. The irony is that conservatives, while they dont realize it, are the descendants of the people who were supporters of King George III in the revolution, or were uncomfortable with the young hotheads who were leading that revolution.

   There is another curious irony with conservatives, especially 2nd Amendment conservatives. Guns are a way of enforcing power when there is a strong, well-funded military. No small group of gun nuts can withstand the might of a government military assault, no matter how well armed they are. In their rather limited imaginations they imagine themselves as the descendants of the Spartan hoplite even though they may not know the meaning of the word hoplite. We on the left often make fun of gun nuts as having feelings of insecurity in their southern region; they have a dinky winky, and supplement their inadequate pudenda with guns and things that go boom. It may be not far from the truth. Our ape ancestors use chest pounding and vocalizations to assert their authority. A tactic often used by conservatives. The apes are also, physiologists tell us, rather inadequate in their pubic development. Again ironically,  the 2nd Amendment crowd may have a closer affiliation to the hoplites than they imagine. Have you seen the bas-reliefs of ancient Greece? The tapestries, the murals, the statues. The gods and soldiers are depicted, in that art, naked with supple bodies. Except for their tiny tools. It's as if they had swum in ice water before posing for the artist. I have not seen depictions of Persian soldiers under Darius or his lineage, perhaps they too were deficient in that area, but one might surmise that the close quarters that armies fought in those days might have been to conceal the embarrassingly small condition of their manly tools. Not so the philosophers, the physicians, the mathematicians and dramatists. They are depicted in long stately robes, usually from the waist up. It is as if the virility they exhibit is contained in the bony structure that contains their beards, their vision,the very potency of their minds. Some of those dramatists, Aristophenes of Lysistrata fame in particular, even sought to attack the virility of the Greek conservatives. History does not record the response to those insulting displays, but the literature of this social satire survives to this day.

   Perhaps there is a medical procedure that will enhance the tiny organ that drives men to become gun cultists. Medical science has come a long way from silicon breast implants for women. But that medical procedure does not substitute for the mental state that comes from such inadequacy. The recipient of the newly enhanced phallus may be tempted to display his surgery in the public domain. These feelings of inadequacy are not predictable, it could lead to the quest to be president. Whatever the reason, guns seem to exert a strong pull on the powerless and inarticulate. Those with power or money can exercise their power in ways far more effective than firearms. The rest of us are left with difficult choices, which we try to overcome by our wits and the means at our legislative disposal. Not so the gun nut. Their powerlessness overwhelms them, so they buy and display the weapons available to them thanks to the NRA. Some among them take their diminutive  penises and their AR-15s and shoot up a bunch of unsuspecting people just trying to find solace in our overwrought public life.