Ha - $5000 per bullet! I love that idea. Then, however, we'd have to keep the ammunition out of the illegal market and the gun shows. I wish it could work!

Actually, the U.S. Constitution was a document written in order to create our government. If you read the whole thing before the amendments, that's what it does. Additional legislation, of the like created by the U.S. Congress, derives from the principles and precedents set up in the Constitution and the Amendments (or, at least it's supposed to).

As for the notorious 2nd Amendment: legal and historical scholars have long debated and continue to debate exactly what the Founders intended with this one. I personally have to suspect that their recent history was very much in mind when they included it in the Bill of Rights (another name for the first 10 amendments). Remember, the Constitutional Convention took place in 1787, a mere four years after the Treaty of Paris sealed the peace between America and Britain. I mean, we wouldn't have had a chance against the British if the colonists had not formed local militias. Course, we wouldn't have won our independence without France, but that's getting off the subject.

By the way, I'm an American (as if you couldn't tell :-)). My husband and I don't own a gun. Nor would we want to.