Overrated “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.”

Never has a subordinate clause caused such trouble. The 13 opening words, qualifying the right, might as well be written in invisible ink, they are so frequently forgotten. The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby generally insist that the rights are individual, not collective for the purpose of protecting the community, and they seem now to have the support of the Attorney General in objecting to restrictions on the ownership of guns of any kind. Historically I see the Second Amendment as weasel words, a compromise between the Federalists, who insisted on a standing army, and the antiFederalists, who feared it would be used to suppress States’ Rights. In the end a small standing army was agreed to, with the proviso that “a well regulated Militia” could be organized at the local level for local protection and to Supplement the national army in a time of threat. The amendment limited only federal power; it left states free to regulate the use and possession of arms. And even as applied to the federal government, the prohibition has been watered down by the courts with more weasely words. The arms that the people have a right to keep and bear are only those that the militia of the day might keep and bear, not sawed-off shotguns, machine guns, and other means of mayhem our day may contrive.