"Restrict"=/="infringe." We can and do set all kinds of conditions for having ALL guns without banning ANY.

As to the militia clause, it is the Second Amendments whole basis. It is GRAMMATICALLY dependent on the other clause, but that one is LOGICALLY dependent on it. Saying, "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," equals saying, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state." Effects are superfluous absent cause, and the Second Amendment is superfluous absent militias. The Framers wanted an armed citizenry, but also wanted that arming ORGANIZED; had they wanted anarchy, they would not have bent over backwards to ensure the nations leaders were not decided by universal adult suffrage.


"Militia"=/="army." Trained and armed but martially inactive private citizens to levy in time of war are not a standing army, else all fifty National Guards would violate the Constitutions ban on state armies in peacetime. The Constitution, as you well know, focused heavily on limiting FEDERAL rather than STATE government, so the Second Amendment empowering state militias to resist federal tyranny just as they did during the Revolution is logical. I have often contended the Constitution requires the federal government protect citizens from state government tyranny only to have you counter that it leaves everything to state discretion except what it explicitly reserves to the federal government, per the Tenth Amendment. I still disagree, but if you are conceding the point now we must revisit MANY old discussions.


The Preamble does not invoke INDIVIDUAL liberty, though I would say the Constitutions explicit efforts to protect minority (especially those of an individual, the ultimate minority) strongly implies it; I am not a strict constructionist.

I share your view of the militia clause as applied to federal, but not state, government. It is easy to imagine one or more state militias rising to resist federal tyranny; they did in 1776, and many still feel they did again in 1861. It is impossible to imagine citizens of one or more states individually rising to resist state tyranny. Not only does the Constitution require the federal government intervene on their behalf (which should have been the Civil Wars pretext,) it would (as it has) surely do so via the US Army and/or National Guard. In every case where individual citizens revolted against state government the federal government would deploy the military to aid either:

1) Citizens resisting state tyranny, which could consequently not hope to endure, or

2) Aid states imposing tyranny, producing the resistance to federal tyranny for which the Second Amendment exists.

In neither case does the Second Amendment empower militias to resist state tyranny by force. The very notion is peculiar to the point of contradiction: That militias, responsible to and commanded by state governments, should forcibly oppose them. No lesser light than John Adams, godfather of American conservatism, evidently agreed when he stated that "To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, counties or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."

That is not to say the Framers were unanimous in their view of militias and the right to bear arms; the above qoute comes from a legal article indicating their views of each were often in direct conflict. It suggests that "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" reflects a compromise as much as a syllogism: Conservatives/Federalists, fearing anarchy and craving the rule of law preventing it, favored language empowering militias responsible to state governments, with no provision for an individual right to arms; liberals/Anti-Federalists favored language empowering a universal citizens right to bear arms, with no provision for state organized militias.

The Framers employed the time honored "solution" of all politicians: Their desperate attempt to satisfy both sides produced a compromise that satisfied neither. Perhaps it should not surprise us that we are no more equal to resolving the issue than our nations founders were.