"The First Amendment protects your right to express yourself."

Not exactly, although very recent court decisions have allowed that misrepresentation.

The first am,endment specifically does NOT cover all expression, at least according to the written understanding stated by the Framers who adopted the amendment. It protects free exercise of religion from encroachment or regulation by the Federal government (and with an interpretation of the 14th amendment that exceeds its scope as stated when adopted, any state or local government as well); it protects SPEECH and ir extends protection to the press from like interference by the state, as well as peaceable assembly by citizens seeking redress from their government.

Sadly, all these rights have been readily abbrogated at nearly every level whenever the state desired ever since the founding and framing. From the early sedition acts seeking to stifle political speech to Lincoln's impisonment of newspaper editors and writers for writing opinion in opposition to his war to "free speech zones" that currently deny protestors the right to "seek redress" whenever President Bush comes to town and McCain-Feingold, which specifically forbids the kind of politicqal speech the Framers were most concerned be protected... *sigh*

But "free expression" is a construct of revisionist courts, a construct that those who framed and ratified the First Amendment specifically disavowed.

As for attacks on the second amendment... *profound sigh* Any genuine and honest reading of the second amendment would place it in the context and understanding of the Framers' intent and understanding, and I'd RIGHTLY be allowed to buy and drive an Abrams M1 or have a MLRS in my back yard, if I could afford such things, because the purpose of the Second Amendment was to make sure the People could resist encroachment of their rights by the government. Remember: the primary barrier passage of the Constitution had to overcome was fear of federal power over the States and their people.

Alas! Lincoln's War demonstrated that the fear was justified, and today's federal establishment is the apotheosis of Lincoln's desire for federal power. (Not that Lincoln did not inadvertently accomplish some good. It's just that the baggage carried forward has given us the overweening power of federal government today.)