Rambling thoughts on the 2nd Amendment

I was going to post this as a comment in reaction to a "keep & bear arms" meme going around Facebook, but since it ended up being longer than the original post, I'm putting it here.

Some rambling thoughts on the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution:

I'd be more sympathetic to people promoting 'the right to bear arms' if we hadn't had 3 gun incidents in the Seattle area in the past few months.

A 3-year old killed himself with a gun while his parents were stopped for gas (the gun was apparently under the seat), a 9 year old was shot when a classmate brought a loaded gun to school and it went off, & another young person brought an unloaded gun to school.

I have a lot of family members who are very responsible with guns, but I wish the 'well-regulated' part of the 2nd amendment was more respected by society at large.

I also don't think the Framers had any idea the type of urban density we would be dealing with. I understand the history behind the 2nd Amendment & just wish that all people who insist on the right to bear arms would also insist (and enforce in their own families) on proper training and rigorous safe storage when the gun is not in use. In an urban environment, there are a lot more innocent bystanders to get hurt if even a few people don't exercise sense in gun ownership.

I've never owned a gun, don't want one, & the only shooting I have done was in school as part of gym class (ah, Wyoming & your interesting gym classes in the 80's). I'm not opposed to gun ownership. I know many people who own & use guns responsibly. I just wish more people in the pro-gun camp would come out with some sympathy for victims of the gun-owning-free-for-all that seems to be encouraged at times.

Guns do kill people, and unlike cars (which also kill people in accidents) the only purpose for a gun is to put a hole in something & break it (be it a target, skeet, or a person). I also think, that a patchwork of random gun ownership does not really provide for the common defense in an age when we have a standing army and a police force. We are no longer the wild west and our founding documents might benefit from being updated to reflect that fact.