In large part, the defense of the second amendment seems to lean towards personal defense, hunting and sport shooting.  Although all of those ideas are indeed inherently protected under the "right to bear arms," the bigger point is overlooked.

Our Founding Fathers penned the Bill Of Rights under a singular notion:  these Constitutional Amendments are to protect the citizens from a power hungry government.  And the Second Amendment makes legal for the American Citizens to keep and bear arms as a specific deterrent against a tyrannical government.  Where you have a government who fears its citizens, you have liberty.  When you have the exact opposite, you have tyranny.

I encourage you to read the following essay by Lawrence Hunter (yes, his name is "Hunter") from Forbes magazine.  Its the most concise and insightful essay on this topic I've read during my research.  Some excerpts:

"It is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it.  Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy.  And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies.  The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.

The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law.  The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.

That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself.  It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people.  Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state. "

What many fail to Recognize is that homicide cases that were carried out by a gun-wielding perpetrator are actually far less common than other types of death:


Are we to take away knives because people stab each other? or how about cars because we run into each other and kill someone in the process? Or doctors because they made a mistake while operating on us? the answer is simply no. All of these things do more countless times more good than they do harm. The problem is that you don't hear about when someone successfully defends his/her spouse, children and property from a break-in because they had a firearm.

I believe that the right to  bear arms is one of the most prolific amendments of the constitution, and also one that makes our country what it is today.

A powerful earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2004 sets off a tsunami that wreaks death and devastation across the Indian Ocean coastline. The quake was the second strongest ever recorded and the estimated 230,000 dead made this disaster one of the 10 worst of all time.

It was 7:58 a.m. when the tremendous quake struck beneath the Indian Ocean 160 miles west of Sumatra. Not only did it register at approximately a 9.3 magnitude (only the 1960 Chile earthquake measured higher at 9.5, though there may have been stronger tremors prior to the invention of seismographic equipment) and last nearly 10 minutes, the quake moved a full 750 miles of underwater fault line earth up to 40 feet. The movement of the earth--there is evidence that huge boulders weighing thousands of tons were pushed several miles along the ocean floor--caused a massive displacement of water. It is estimated that the resulting tsunami had two times the energy of all the bombs used during II.

Within 15 minutes, tsunami waves were crashing the coast of Sumatra. At the north end of the island was a heavily populated region known as Aceh. There, waves reached 80 feet high over large stretches of the coast and up to 100 feet in some places. Entire communities were simply swept away by the water in a matter of minutes. The death toll in Indonesia is estimated at between 130,000 and 160,000 people, with an additional 500,000 people left homeless. About a third of the victims were children.

The huge waves missed the coast of Indonesia on the north side and went on to Thailand, where between 5,000 and 8,000 people died. The tsunami also moved east across the Indian Ocean. In Sri Lanka, the tsunami came ashore about 90 minutes after the earthquake. Although the waves were not as high as in Aceh, they still brought disaster. Approximately 35,000 people lost their lives and half a million others lost their homes. In addition, about 15,000 people died in India. The killer waves even reached 5,000 miles away in South Africa, where two people perished.

In total, about 190,000 people are confirmed dead with another 40,000 to 45,000 missing and presumed dead. Although billions of dollars of humanitarian aid poured in to the affected region in the aftermath of the disaster--an estimated $7 billion within the first 18 months—some areas are still suffering from the massive devastation.

This year is the tenth anniversary of the event and it is still impacting the region; programs and studies continue, both to support recovery efforts and to understand the science behind this devastating natural disaster. Now that the world is more sensitive to the danger posed by tsunamis, awareness has improved early alerts and warning systems, as well as prepared disaster-relief agencies with real data.

The earthquake has been titled the Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake and is the highest magnitude earthquake in the region in over 40 years. Over 227,898 people have been confirmed dead making this the fourth largest death toll from an earthquake in recorded history. Several years after the quake and tsunami events, the entire region is still trying to recover and to rebuild. Some areas will never recover.

The amount of preparedness for the tsunami varied greatly, as some countries in the Phillipines and the surrounding Countries with Indian Ocean coastline were better off financially. However, it is very hard to be prepared for a wave measuring 80-100 feet with 15 minutes between the displacement of the water and the impact of the wave on the coastline. While the levels of preparedness varied, none were at an optimum level to prevent mass death and destruction. That being said, if the West Coast of the United States were to be hit by a tsunami, the economic loss in that region would be unthinkable. There were early detection devices placed in the Indian Ocean at the time, but they were closer to the middle of the ocean. by the time the waves hit the early detection devices, they had already slammed in to Indonesia.

                    

The Total amount of relief efforts were around 7.5 Billion dollars in worth. An additional 20 million dollars were spent in tsunami early-warning systems. Months after the tsunami hit, outbreaks in disease caused an additional 150,000 deaths.