Reply #99: Obviously you don't trust citizens...

[spin]

but you do trust government.

Government and religion have been the source of most of the problems humankind has faced through history.

The foundation of our country is a distrust of government and the belief in the wisdom of the average citizen.

Jeffersonian Democracy also established what the purpose and role of governments are. "That to secure these natural rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever . . . Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."2 This idea comes directly from the philosophy of Locke.

Good government should not be a conflict between sovereign and subject, but a compact between man and man. The ultimate supreme power should not be vested in the scepter of the king, it should remain in the hands of the people. The Community at large has the right to cancel the compact if the government has violated its conditions.3

Ideally, then, under Jeffersonian Democracy, the government is the people, and people is the government. Therefore, if a particular government ceases to work for the good of the people, the people may and ought to change that government or replace it. Governments are established to protect the people's rights using the power they get from the people.

Jefferson himself favored a small, weak central government. To strong a central government, he believed, would trample the very rights it was meant to protect. He believed in a more complete democracy based on mutual trust among men. "I cannot act as if all men are unfaithful because some are so . . . I had rather be the victim of occasional infidelities than relinquish my general confidence in the honesty of man."4 The weak central government that Jefferson favored would give more power to the people, thus making a more democratic society.
http://www.byzantinecommunications.com/adamhoward/homework/highschool/jeffersonian.html

How did Jefferson feel about guns?

When writing in 1824 to the great English Whig John Cartwright, Jefferson could observe: "The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people;… that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed…" http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Mags/ThomasJeffersonForever.htm

Our country is a great experiment. The right to own firearms is extremely important to that experiment. Take that right away or severely restrict it and we merely become another nation of the powerful and the slaves who merely serve.

I once heard a very intelligent individual say that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. He may be correct, but history shows that such leaders rarely appear.

I prefer our form of government. It may be far from perfect and in fact I fear we are moving from a government of the people, by the people and for the people to a government of the corporations, for the corporations and by the corporations.

But we have the power to change this without violence, and if absolutely necessary with violence. Very few nations in our world can say this.