"A Well Regulated Militia"

[Darwin333]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Genx87
"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."

If it were written today, it would be written in one of these forms:
1. A well regulated milita is necessary to the security of a free state. Therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
2. A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state. Further, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

At least, those are the two "translations" that I can pick out when reading it. The two have very different meanings, however. In either case, I think it's clear simply from historical context that the authors never would have presumed to remove the right to guns from the common citizenry simply because owning a gun was a basic necessity at the time for hunting and what have you.

Not to mention that the Brits tried to deny them the right to bear arms and if they would have succeeded the war they fought quite possibly could have ended different.

They intended make sure that the people had the ability to rise up against an oppressive government, much like they did.