I've Been Accused of being Liberal. Okay I'm laying my cards on the table

LSSpam said
The 2nd Amendment, as I understand it personnally, is simply the right to protect yourself. Having to rely on the Federal government to protect you in all regards involves a high level of dependency. Of course, we depend on the federal government for a lot of things, represent our collective interests on a national level, maintan law and order, educate us, etc. But at the very least "personnal protection" seems to be reserved for us and maintaining as much independence from the Federal Government as reasonable seems like a good deal to me. Especially in light of Katrina when the Federal government's ability to protect us was demonstrated to be quite limited at times.

I should have made it clear that I was responding to some posts earlier that were defending the idea that the purpose of the Amendment was to protect people from a possible tyranny here in the U.S.
I think there is an obvious dilemna if you adopt that position, either:

a - the situation has changed so much because of the fact that the U.S. now has a sizeable standing army and that army has incredibly powerful weapons therefore the idea that a citizenry can be armed well enough to protect themselves from such a power is ridiculous;
or
b - citizens should have the right to own any weapon the U.S. government has in its arsenal.