Reply #61: That may be so, but the 2nd speaks nothing about it.

[AtheistCrusader]

" The Second Amendment protects the right of the People, collectively sovereign, to raise an army of common citizens, a militia, to ensure the security of the state."

This statement is incorrect. The Militia Act did so, but the 2nd Amendment does NOT provide for the formation of a militia. You could lop off the 'A well regulated milita being necessary to the security of a free state,' and not change the functional nature of the amendment one iota.

See, US vs. Cruikshank

The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States.

Part of that has been reversed, notably in Heller, since, the court has held that the 1st also applies to the States, so does the 2nd. But the meaning is clear. Several Supreme Court decisions make it quite clear, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is not in any way whatever dependend upon their membership in any Militia.