Mothers crying in the street as they beg for food to feed their children, innocent children murdered in mass, despair, devastation, and heartache. In most countries where citizens have little or no say in the government, these atrocities are daily occurrences. Repeatedly in history, countries fall into this pattern after a certain faction of the population seizes complete power in the government. In order to take control of the government, members of these groups must first disarm the general population of the country and the people with the guns take control. In society today guns equal power. In America, the Founding Fathers recognized the power guns had and took great caution to ensure that the power of guns would never be taken away from the citizens and placed in the hands of the government. Attorney General John Ashcroft's statement declaring that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, irrespective of any ties to a state militia, has raised a debate over the Founding Fathers" true intentions for the Second Amendment. Opponents to Ashcroft's policy statement argue that this decision reverses years of legal precedent and contradicts the true meaning of the right to bear arms. It is clear that the Founding Fathers intended the Second Amendment to protect the right of every individual to bear arms, when we review their writings on the subject interpreted in the context of that era in history. .
A primary fear the Founding Fathers shared was of a federal government with too much power resulting in a tyrannical force that would impair or destroy the freedom of American citizens. In order to prevent this catastrophe, the Founding Fathers went to great lengths to limit the power of the central government. If the Founding Fathers mistrusted the Federal Government enough to create the Bill of Rights, it seems logical that they would not place an excessive amount of faith in state governments either (http://guncite.