Once and for all:The Second Amendment"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."
Gee, if they intended this to mean "
no laws restricting arms whatsoever," they
sure could've worded it differently... maybe move the part about "shall not be infringed" out of the subordinate clause? Or delete the whole part about a "well regulated militia" since according to Republicans that whole clause is more or less a typo and means nothing?
Also, I should be allowed to amass an army, complete with tanks, nuclear bombs, and stealth bombers since the government has all those, and my right to bear arms is the only thing protecting us from tyranny! Never mind that we didn't have "tyranny" from 1789 when the Constitution was ratified until now... if I can't keep an insane arsenal in my home, it's a real threat.
Aren't there any other places we can look to interpret that two lines of text our naive Founding Fathers left us with?
Sure... there are the Federalist Papers, which consist of 85 essays written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, intended to explain their rationale and reasoning for a constitution. As Hamilton and Madison were two of the primary drafters of the actual US Constitution, the Federalist Papers are widely considered to be an expanded commentary on the meaning and intent of the provisions of the Constitution.
Uh... so what do they say about my being able to buy whatever guns I want, whenever I want, and brag to the Libs about it?
Nothing. There is no single essay about arms, weapons, firearms, etc. There is one (1) essay (#29) out of the 85 about militias, and it serves as an answer to critics at the time who complained state militias would be a threat to liberty. Elsewhere in the Federalist papers, militias are mentioned in passing about a half dozen times, pertaining to the need for training them, or who would have the authority to call them out.
Not much in there for gun humpers to get excited about (if any of them ever actually read either the Constitution or the Federalist Papers... fat chance of that).
By the way, we
HAVE well-regulated militias today... they're called
the National Guard. You want to play with guns, moron? Join up. They'll take pretty much anyone.