Reply #47: It's not my analogy, but still...

[Damndifino]

there are more reasons to catch fish than to use the guts to sustain the economy, right?

Maybe, but the economic reason is the one stated - the one held as justfying the catching of fish. If the right was believed to require justification, one assumes that the drafters of this hypothetical bill foresaw potentially disastrous consequences of the right being exercised. For "fish", try substituting "blue whales" and you see what I mean.

Returning to the original subject, it seems to me that the drafters of the 2nd Amendment felt that guaranteeing the right to bear arms required urgent justification. Once the justification (i.e. security of the state through organised militias) disappears, so does the obligation to maintain the guarantee. Stretching the interpretation further, one might say that it is implicit in the Amendment that the guarantee is precisely conditional upon the necessity for organised militias. The 2nd Amendment is unique within the Bill of Rights in having such a justificatory condition attached. It might as well have read,

(So long as) A well regulated Militia (remains) necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.