I also found it curious that it was right after the first amendment. Most important, it seems, is freedom of speech, of religion, and of assembly. But guns are a close second. Maybe the framers were seriously worried about bears.

But guns were the way of protecting yourself back in the good old days. Nowadays I’m not so sure. But if you really want to protect yourself from the government, I say a smartphone is a much better investment. When everyone’s phone is a camera that can instantly post pictures to the intertubes, a government responsible to the people has to watch its back more often.

I know that it’s not quite the same thing. Maybe the point of the second amendment is physical security, so that we should also be protecting crowbars. But if you look at the beginning of the Bill of Rights as: 1) you can say what you want, worship how you want, and assemble how you want, and 2) you can defend yourself in those rights, it seems sensible that the second amendment should cover PCs, digital cameras, and assorted Twitter-accessible devices.

This post was shamelessly inspired by Mr. Munroe’s xkcd comic entitled “Legal Hacks”.