Reply #20: The "people" in the 2ndA are the same "people" as in the 1stA and 4thA.

[benEzra]

The right recognized by the 2ndA is recognized as belonging to the people, NOT merely males of military age.

The view of the 2ndA as protecting the right of the government to keep and bear arms dates to the 20th century, not the 18th, and constitutional scholarship has since swung back toward the individual-right view. This was apparent as far back as the mid-'90s.

Barnett and Kates, "Under Fire: The New Consensus on the Second Amendment" 45 Emory L.J. 1139-1259 (1996) (Link)

BTW, the "no right to bear arms" quotation was from a prominent advocate for draconian gun bans, Amitai Etzioni, who is no more an impartial source than Charleton Heston. If you look at his writings, and those of other communitarians, he is also not particularly enamored of the 1st and 4th amendments, either.

The DLC is largely a communitarian organization ("Third Way" is a communitarian meme), though it is arguably less so now than in the '90s.

BTW, Mr. Etzioni's twisting of U.S. v. Cruikshank is laughable. He says,

The Supreme Court first addressed the issue to the right to bear arms in the United States v. Cruikshank. In that case, Ku Klux Klan members were charged with infringing the constitutional rights of black citizens to bear arms. The Supreme Court ruled that the right of the people to keep and bear arms "is not a right granted by the Constitution."

Cruikshank said that NONE of the rights in the BoR are granted by the constitution, because those rights (including the right to keep and bear arms) predate the Constitution and could not therefore be granted by it; the Constitution merely recognizes and protects those rights. Look it up.