The right to bear arms was an essential right in 1787 because of the risk of Indian incursion, not as a bulwark against tyranny or a defense against foreign invasion. The concept of a “well-regulated militia” as it concerned pre-Revolutionary America actually would often have been little more than a posse of all available homesteaders organized to defend the area or march on a nearby settlement.
In this context, each individual actually does represent his own militia, because he may be the only one available to defend an isolated farm. The idea that the Founders intended weapons to be limited exclusively to organized military formations is preposterous; with few exceptions, such formal organizations did not exist. In many frontier regions, there would have been no defense available to settlers if the Amendment was read as many now propose.
This absolutely does not mean that gun control is unconstitutional, however. The inclusion of the phrase “well-regulated militias” in the Amendment was not an accident, even if it is frequently misread today.
The Founders intended weapons to be readily available to the extent that Americans would be ABLE to form a “well-regulated militia” to defend against incursion. This is the appropriate reading of the Amendment. Gun control should therefore be based, as it was in 1934 and 1994, on a determination of what constitutes a necessary weapon to enable the formation of a militia. I personally think that hunting rifles and pistols probably constitute an adequate complement of weaponry for a militia (in a country with a standing army), but others may disagree.
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