>>25
Ok, I see where you're coming from. It's true that if our nation put all it's resources efforts in the right places we'd be a lot better off, and maybe citizens wouldn't need firearms. But there are still a few things you have to understand.
1. Posse Comitatus - The military cannot be used to police citizens. We could get around it if we hired more police and less soldiers, but most americans don't want to live in a police state.
2. Drug policies / failed war on drugs. As it stands our drug policies end up creating criminals out of thousands, if not millions of non-violent offenders. They go to prison and learn how to be a whole lot worse. Current policies also make possible a very lucrative black market for drugs and guns, leading to even more crime and government corruption on many levels. Check out a documentary called "American Drug War." You'll learn a lot about how badly corrupted the system is.
3. The right to bare arms was not created only for personal protection. The founding fathers, who had just emancipated themselves from England's harsh rule, recognized that the people should be able to defend themselves from tyrannical governments. That is why the second amendment is said to protect all other rights.
So, if you really wanted to disarm the civilian population without screwing over the masses you'd really have to change the entire culture of the country and find a way to ensure that as little corruption as possible finds its way into the government. And that's just not possible.