Nice to see the better minds of Slate on this issue.

First of all, those who argue that only a government should have the big weapons forgets that the whole point of the amendment is to keep the government from trying to impose its will on the people of the state. If you believe that, then yes, we should be allowed to own whatever it takes to fight an oppressive government. If only the government is able to own artillery and war planes, etc then your point is moot--no pistol or rifle will stop a government using cluster bombs on its own people. We saw this with many oppressive governments--he with the biggest baddest weapons wins. So please dont use this as your argument-unless I can own a thermonuclear weapon, that isnt the result of the amendment.

I will tell you where I stand as a Massachusetts liberal (yes, the very same massachusetts liberals who took the first blood for the revolutionary war and staffed the first armed militia who first fought the English at Lexington and Concord.)

Believe it or not I am for gun ownership as are MOST liberals. It is a complete myth that liberals in general are anti-gun. The amendment indeed does give the general population the right to keep and practice with reasonabe weapons for the purpose of self defense and hunting-and back in the old days, your weapon was primarily used to get your meals, not to keep the man from putting you down. Yes, we used common hunting weapons against the British empire, but we won more on our tactics than anything else. We also had help from those awful folks the French (and I would argue we would all be paying our taxes to the crown were it not for the French).

So what do liberals REALLY want? Well we want to clarify the law to do two main things-keep the guns reasonable and keep them out of the wrong hands. Fortunately these two things are not hard to achieve:

1-We need to define personal weapons to limit them to pistols and rifles used for hunting and for anti-home intruder/criminal use. This means no machine guns, no grenades, no armor piercing bulletts, and other weapons which are clearly way beyond such a requirement. The argument I do hear supporting such weapons mentions use against a mob requiring such power, but personally I suspect that the mob would still be able to get you, may well have such weapons themselves, and hopefully, the individual would be part of such a mob or part of a government response to it-groups fight groups.

2-Keeping guns in the right hands. As VA Tech proved, in the wrong hands, it doesnt matter what kind of guns, a lot of innocent people die. People kill people. We should be sure to have a FEDERAL system of gun control which keeps criminals and mentally ill people from getting a gun. This means a REAL background check and it means mandatory safety classes, registration with local police of EACH GUN you buy (so we know who has what and where it is SUPPOSED TO BE). Possession of a non registered gun should be a very criminal offense. Selling a gun without going throught the checks should also be very criminal.

I also support not allowing someone to own a gun until they are 21. My reasoning here is really simple-judgement and circumstances. A teenager has a lot of emotional crap which could possibly lead to bad judgement with a gun-this includes crimes of passion, revenge, and foolish games of all kinds. I admit that even at and after 21 these remain real issues, but nowhere near the same numbers. By 21 you have worked a lot of things out, matured some, and hopefully have a sense of responsibility advanced enough to own deadly force provided you can pass all the requirements.

Lastly, no one should be arguing for a gun based on "tradition". That is the stupidist argument ever. Racism was a tradition as was human sacrifice, stoning of people, and many other nice things. You dont argue for possession of a deadly weapons based on the fact that it used to be OK because Daddy had one. If you feel you need a gun, it is your right to go through the procedure to obtain one, but you need to be trained to do it safely and the police need to know you have one.

So again I say, dont believe the hype. Most liberals are quite reasonable on the issue of gun ownership. Of course we have some extremists, but then so does the right wing.