Therwol,

I stand ready to work with you togather votes and write petitions and what ever else you feel is right to CHANGE the second amendment. But, until the 2nd amendment is repealed or modified, it IS the law of the land and our job is to follow that law as written. All of us veterans on this site took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all dangers, foreign and domestic. I do not recall anyone telling me that the oath we took no loner is operative in our lives.

I suspect you really don't want to go the distance to repeal or modify the 2nd amendment, you probably only want to ignore it and tell yourself and other that it only means what you want it to mean - but that is why the founders forced the government to write it down!

I know the feeling.

Many years ago when Richard Ramirez was getting headlines as the Night Stalker I bought my wife a very nice 4" Rossi 38spl with target sights. She never seemed to have time to go to the range and learn to shoot. One day I took our then 10 year old son and taught him to shoot, he liked Mom's 38. When we got home and he heard me get brushed off on her learning to shoot again he popped around the corner and proclaims "Dad taught me to shoot your gun today and says I'm pretty good, so if that guy shows up here I'll take care of it for you." She was at the range the next day, and claimed one of my 45 autos because "It will make a bigger hole and fits my hand better." (she also got better groups with it)
Fast forward a few decades and I took our then 16 year old daughter (now 23) to the range and taught her to shoot. The bigger the hole in the end and the bigger the blast they more she liked it. The next day Mom went along for lesson #2 and both she and Jasmine kept blowing off my best 45 ACP ammo (I didn't take the 44 mag, Jasmine wanted to know why, I told the truth, I only have one box of defensive hollow point ammo and the range's target rounds were too expensive.)
Well a guy at the other end of the range (indoor) opens a case and takes out an AK-47, a real one, not a look alike. I went to tell the range master and he told me it was OK, the guy was Secret Service, the gun was government issue and a custom job built by the FBI armory crew from a high end Bulgarian piece just for him. He was firing frangible bullets.
Well my wife and Jasmine went down and asked to look at the AK. Then Debra asked if Jasmine could get a picture holding it. Then he asked if she would like to fire it, she said YES at top of a three foot bounce. So he put in a short 10 round magazine and she proceeded to put all but two in the 9 ring and those were in the 8 ring at 25 yards while Mom's cell phone recorded the event. Well it did have a laser.
Now she still won't shoot a 22 rifle or pistol, if the hole isn't at least .30 she doesn't want to touch it.

Oh, also a Vietnam Vet, 2 years 2 months 2 days according to my DD 214. By the Grace of God I was one of those people always leaving just before the shooting started or arriving just after it was over, except three times and those times all the action was on the far side of the compound perimeter and I was tied to my guard post or sector. All of those were during Tet or the weeks following it.