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Originally Posted by olsaltybastard
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Where is the Supreme Court in all this mess, would be my question. ...
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The US Supreme Court has it's share of problems, but compared to the other two branches of government, they don't really cause you much of a problem. Oddly enough they are the only branch of government that has kept close to their role as imagined by our founding fathers. Compared to the size or the rest of the government, the court system is nothing.
In my opinion, the Supreme Court has gotten worse in the last 20 years or so. I believe it's because in those last 25 years, presidents of both parties went from appointing the best jurists they could find to appointing people that were of the same political mind. This has greatly reduced the quality of the results.
As for your right to bear arms, the full text of the second amendment is "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Oddly enough the court has never ruled on exactly what this means. Like a lot of other issues there are two possible interpretations. The first is what many groups like the NRA believe. That is, anyone should be able to own guns. The second is that only the members of "a well regulated militia" may own guns. In other words the government may not prevent the state militia from having guns.
The court has upheld just about all other gun control laws. Many states have laws that forbid people with criminal records from owing guns. Others have laws that forbid people that have a domestic violence restraining order against them from owing guns. New York state has had the "Sullivan Law", which requires a police permit before you can own a handgun, has been on the books since 1911.