Some of you are confusing the rights referred to in the Constitution as it's written with the common usages of the federal and state laws of the past 100 years, which isn't surprising, since language changes and language changes our perceptions of concepts. The Founders believed in the personal right of the individual to defend himself and his family from ALL dangers extant, including an oppressive government. Immigration laws and subsequent self-serving interpretations of the Second Amendment do not touch upon the basic right to self-defense and arguing the legality or illegality of a person's presence in this country does not touch upon his basic right to self-defense. Neither does an argument that "rights" are given up when a person is incarcerated apply to those NOT incarcerated. Laws stripping felons of their right to bear arms are relatively recent in our nation; at one point it was common belief that once one's term in prison was finished, he had "paid his debt to society" and ALL rights and privileges were returned to him. As J_Wales and others have often said, you either believe in the Second Amendment (or the Bill of Rights in its entirety for that matter) or you don't. We all either have the right to self-defense with the arms of our choice or we don't; it's not something you can weasel-word around to restrict it to those you consider "worthy".
