1. That's not true - the grammatical structure of the sentence is different:
Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
While terminal marks (i.e., full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks) mark the end of a sentence, the comma, semicolon and colon are normally sentence internal, making them secondary boundary marks. Semicolons are intermediate in strength between terminal marks and commas; their strength is equal to that of the colon.<4>
Constraints
When a semicolon marks the right boundary of a constituent (e.g., a clause or a phrase), the left boundary is marked by punctuation of equal or greater strength.
When two or more semicolons are used within a single construction, all constituents are at the same level, unlike commas which can separate, for example, subordinate clauses from main clauses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SemicolonIn the First Amendment there are 3 main clauses all of equal importance: religion, civil discourse, and communal. In the Second Amendment, there is one superior clause and one subordinate clause: weapons in society, and individual privilege. Anybody who's studied 18th century American colonial political philosophy can tell you that the writing style of that period was extremely heavy on the use of grammar to separate and relate and order logical thoughts.
For example, take this excerpt from a 20-year-old Benjamin Franklin's "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. London: Printed in the Year MDCCXXV (1725). (Yale University Library):
V. If He is all-powerful, there can be nothing either existing or acting in the Universe against or without his Consent; and what He consents to must be good, because He is good; therefore Evil doth not exist.
Unde Malum? has been long a Question, and many of the Learned have perplex’d themselves and Readers to little Purpose in Answer to it. That there are both Things and Actions to which we give the Name of Evil, is not here deny’d, as Pain, Sickness, Want, Theft, Murder, &c. but that these and the like are not in reality Evils, Ills, or Defects in the Order of the Universe, is demonstrated in the next Section, as well as by this and the following Proposition. Indeed, to suppose any Thing to exist or be done, contrary to the Will of the Almighty, is to suppose him not almighty; or that Something (the Cause of Evil) is more mighty than the Almighty; an Inconsistence that I think no One will defend: And to deny any Thing or Action, which he consents to the existence of, to be good, is entirely to destroy his two Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness.
There is nothing done in the Universe, say the Philosophers, but what God either does, or permits to be done. This, as He is Almighty, is certainly true: But what need of this Distinction between doing and permitting? Why, first they take it for granted that many Things in the Universe exist in such a Manner as is not for the best, and that many Actions are done which ought not to be done, or would be better undone; these Things or Actions they cannot ascribe to God as His, because they have already attributed to Him infinite Wisdom and Goodness; Here then is the Use of the Word Permit; He permits them to be done, say they. But we will reason thus: If God permits an Action to be done, it is because he wants either Power or Inclination to hinder it; in saying he wants Power, we deny Him to be almighty; and if we say He wants Inclination or Will, it must be, either because He is not Good, or the Action is not evil, (for all Evil is contrary to the Essence of infinite Goodness.) The former is inconsistent with his before-given Attribute of Goodness, therefore the latter must be true.
It will be said, perhaps, that God permits evil Actions to be done, for wise Ends and Purposes. But this Objection destroys itself; for whatever an infinitely good God hath wise Ends in suffering to be, must be good, is thereby made good, and cannot be otherwise.
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jspDo you see the variation in grammar and how it relates to the ordering of the argument? People in the 18th Century wrote in sentence forms that are radically different from how we write today, which is more free-flowing and less dependent on the use of such punctuation marks.
2. I would rather have local jurisdictions which are much more attuned to the individual case doing such screening initial screening than the FBI - although local officials should certainly have access to a national database. I mean, you don't get cleared by the FBI to have a drivers license, which gives one right to use what the courts judge to be a deadly weapon. Why should firearms be different?
3. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine, Seung-Hui Cho at Virgina Tech, Scott Evans Dekraai in Seal Beach recently all had multiple weapons. If Jared Lee Loughner had a second weapon he would have killed many more too. As Loughner demonstrates, easy access to multiple firearms allows one to continue the spree without the immediate interruption of re-loading. Such a restriction would reduce proliferation while preserving the right to bear arms and making for a safer society.
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