"But, as Adam Winkler and other historians have explained, it was the Black Panthers who first really confused this understanding by claiming that the Second Amendment was about private rights rather than the rights of militias."

Confused the understanding? The Black Panthers are probably the best modern example of why the 2nd Ammendment was written, and why it's necessary. I think the whole point of a militia, and why it's a militia rather than the army, is that it doesn't need government validation to exist. What possible better reason could there be to keep and bear arms than being part of a group of people that not only has a centuries-old history of oppression, but is also routinely the victim of institutional oppression, violence and outright murder? But I guess when most of us (by this, I mean stranger readers) were not alive or were very young during the more intense years of the civil rights movement it's easier to say that they should have just huffed tear gas and let german shepards chew on their asses until they got their point across.

not only towns; the entire STATE of TEXAS banned revolvers and the court upheld it against a right to bear arms challenge where the state right to bear arms was expressly an individual right to bear arms.

iow: since supremes ruled our second a. RTBA is an individual right, so what, you can still limit that right constitutionally with a ban on a class of weapons.

like nukes. like tanks. like mustrard gas. like machine guns. like numchuks. like no carrying knife over 3.5 inches in seattle except to buy or repair one. like semi automatics and if we want like all revolvers.

ALL rights have their natural contours and limits including limits set by other rights and none are unlimited and absolute. You are free from slavery, except if you have a kid? yes you must pay child support and house the kid. you have freedom of speech, until you say "I do" or "I agree to pay $500 for your horse." Then, you are not free, based on your speech!

freedom of speech has limits and contours, so does the right to bear arms, it's not all arms in all places at all times, it's SOME arms as set by the legislature.

I tend to think the notion that the Black Panther Party was a forerunner of the contemporary NRA is far-fetched, specious, and ultimately inaccurate. White Rural Rage has its own origins in American colonial history, the Civil War, the failure of Reconstruction, the conservative resurgence which began in the 60s, and the shift of power to the American Sun Belt in the 70s. Gun Nuts in the 70s represented trends that had been as long in the making in terms of their own cultural-historical experience.

I think we should look to the Confederate Army, The Ku Klux Klan, and southern resistance to integration as "forefathers" of the NRA before we look at The Black Panthers. Notions of states' rights, anti-federalism, and the private prerogative to own firearms which feed the NRA started in that convex first. Pinning the ideology of gun-nuts on the Black Panthers is tempting because, like many experiments with radicalism, the two histories--of White Rural Rage and Black Urban Militancy--share similar ebbs and flows and symbols. It's kind of like saying the Ku Klux Klan was a forefather of the Nation of Islam; statements like that make for great irony, but I'm not yet convinced they make for great historicity.

It is true that desperate straits force people to come up with similar institutional responses, but are we really going to say that rural whites in the 70s were taking their lead from the Black Panthers? Or does it seem more likely that they could've come to certain similar conclusions on their historical-cultural volition?

More than half of young voters in Kansas are distancing themselves from the Democratic and Republican Parties.
This demographic includes high school students, college students, young families and young individuals.

When asked why, both Democrats and Republicans are to blame for the 17 Trillion dollar debt, the lack of jobs, lower quality of education, and depreciation of their quality of life.

When asked their reasoning to the above question, both Democrats and Republicans, no matter who was at the White House, or who was the majority in Congress and Senate, have been in control of legislation since the 1900s, and things have gotten worse since then; there is really no one else to blame.

When asked their party affiliation, 65 per 100 young Americans named themselves independent, and the remainder no longer fully identifying themselves with either Republicans nor Democrats and support the idea of no party at all: independence.

Sources:
YouTube: "Reserve 100"
YouTube: "Architects and Engineers"
Politico
Harvard Political Studies
Modern American History