Stefanie wrote:
"Balthazar is a good man. But until all men are like him, we must keep our swords bright!"

what you said reminded me of Hobbs and his book Leviathan
when I was in my late teens I had a very good friend who was an anarchist and I always profoundly disagreed with him (nice bloke and I still see him from time to time)

the law and the state is a social contract -- we pull together as a community and defend each other -- in a sense at some stage in our lives, infancy and or old age we are all vulnerable or because of illness or circumstances we are "weak" thus it is enlightened self-interest, a good meme and moral. But it is a contract we in democratic societies renegotiate with every election and set a new balance. So indeed yes we must keep our swords bright but again although I am not in any way suggesting American society can be disarmed not because I don't think it would be desirable but rather because I don't believe it is a viable option -- I just think Prohibition, in the sense that it would be unenforceable (not that I think Prohibition was seeking a desirable outcome God knows I enjoy a drink too much to think that): anyway I live in a different country with, as Decius has pointed out, a very different history of violence although certainly very violent. Although I'm not sure the state sponsored violence he cites necessarily follows into levels of civil mayhem (other clearly from the question he cites of what happens to returning soldiers and their weapons) and translates into murder rates. (Although I fundamentally agree that with capital punishment we send a strange message when we punish people for killing people by killing people yet I'm not sure that in itself translates into a more or less violent society). I think murder is generally a deeply irrational event, people are driven by anger, jealousy, revenge, fear etc and guns are simply a great facilitator of death. It is a lot more difficult to be up close and personal in order to stab someone. I simply think of the practicality of cooling off periods, the up close and personal element, the physical difficulty of stabbing a human being especially when they are breathing in your face. I think guns facilitate murder because they make it easy. Easier physically and emotionally.

The metaphorical and literal swords in Britain have been abandoned by the general population (I am currently reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin cycle set during the Napoleonic era when firearms were legal here and funnily enough a female character in one of the books just answered the door with a gun in her hand, also during this time swords were routinely carried). Our swords have been ceded to the state wherein only the police are permitted within guidelines to use force. I'm not quite sure where these observations take us other than to observe that British society was disarmed incrementally over a very long period of time. Any attempts to disarm the US will take a long time and the 2nd amendment argument is fraudulent. As Decius pointed out the 2nd amendment is there to ensure that if the state became despotic it could be overthrown, the founders had no conception what a good job they were doing so it was present as a fail safe, just in case it all went horribly wrong (as indeed it did in Revolutionary France and a warmongering dictator arose). Also since the state has WMDs and the populous do not that justification for the 2nd amendment becomes moot and I doubt many would argue based on the 2nd amendment that civilians should have access to WMDs. The 2nd amendment I think should be repealed (or whatever the term would be - it's all American to me 8-) ) but an incremental approach needs to be taken, a pragmatic approach and as Decius said

it will take several generations to work some of this history out.

RE: Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia. - washingtonpost.com