The Second Amendment does not require a valid EXCUSE to have any weapon; it requires a valid excuse to DENY one. Failure to pass a mental health/criminal background check, receive adequate training and certification of same or license and register the weapon all qualify, IMHO, but the guns inherent lethality does not, not unless we also ban swords, knives, bats and every other lethal weapon. You always said you did not need a gun because of your mag light, but it could easily shatter a skull or rupture an organ: Should you therefore be prohibited from owning it? Are its self-defense applications insufficient cause to exempt you from that ban?

All that aside, and whether we like it or not, Mao was correct to say political power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and gun rights advocates are correct to say the entire Bill of Rights ultimately rests on the Second Amendment. Again I note there can be little doubt what the Framers intended by the Second Amendment given that the American Revolution began at Lexington and Concord, when the British Army tried to confiscate guns the militias used to resist government tyranny, and the militias met them in battle to prevent it. If the Founding Fathers did not intend the public to have access to military weaponry they would have remained loyal British subjects.