CRUMBLING THE ‘COLLECTIVE RIGHT’ SECOND AMENDMENT ARGUMENTS: “According to progressives, that first phrase, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” indicates that the purpose of the amendment is to establish and maintain a regulated militia whose purpose is to defend the state. On this interpretation, the amendment does not secure the right of individuals to own weapons as individuals.

There are two counters to this claim that demonstrate how facile it is. The first argument is simply a matter of understanding the grammar of the actual text of the Second Amendment. The first phrase is under proper grammar, and as confirmed by the United States Supreme Court, a prefatory phrase. It is not a statement of the sole purpose of the right to bear arms, but is an understanding of the way in which the right would be used in the defense of the state.

Furthermore, the Second Amendment clearly identifies right as belonging to ‘the people.’ This identification clearly shows to whom the right belongs. As Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in one of his most magisterial opinions: “Nowhere else in the Constitution does a ‘right’ attributed to ‘the people’ refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention ‘the people,’ the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.”

If “the people” does not apply to all the individual citizens in the Second Amendment, then how can it do so for those other amendments? The meaning of the statement is clear, despite the obfuscation of progressive activism. The second counterargument relies on examining what the framers of the Constitution meant. Fortunately for supporters of the right to bear arms, and unfortunately for their opponents, many of the people who wrote the Constitution wrote elsewhere about its meaning. Many of the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Samuel Adams all explicitly endorsed individual ownership of arms. Even Alexander Hamilton, the founder most in favor of big government and a standing army, agreed that private citizens ought to be allowed to own weapons.

The founders were also clear about what they meant by the term militia. Richard Henry Lee stated it very succinctly: “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves… and include all men capable of bearing arms.” In other words, whether a militia is the proper holder of arms or the people is irrelevant, because they are one and the same. Only by ignoring the words of the founders, as well as the basic rules of grammar, can the progressives’ case even appear valid. Once the ignorance is cured, their case crumbles to dust.”

http://blog.heartland.org/2014/06/the-militia-myth-understanding-the-language-of-the-2nd-amendment/

I say again, all the cucked up wording at tbe beginning of 2A can be chopped off and flushed down the toilet.

No other amendment has a JUSTIFICATION attached to it, suggesting that it would be illegitimate without that horribly punctuated gobbledygook explanation.

All that is needed are these, the most important 14 words in the entirety of our founding documents. For without them the rest are nothing but empty, defenseless words on a page:

*THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. *

[Just imagine the formatting worked on this site, so the 14 words appeared in italicized text.]

All that mumbo jumbo beforehand needs to go. It's obfuscatory garbage.