> Well regulated means well armed
How do you figure this? Is there judicial precedent for this particular interpretation?
How do you figure this? Is there judicial precedent for this particular interpretation?
Guns were not issued to citizens, but were owned personally. It makes sense that the resulting law would read “we want the ability to have a militia and have those guys bring along their guns”. Especially because there was no standing army at the time, it was envisioned that the US Army was simply a way to refer to a conglomeration of state militias, not an organized Army.
Consider another part of the US Constitution, the Commerce clause: "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
In this case "Regulate" is clearly used to mean the action of setting rules. It's a bit weird that they would use that word again in a legal context to mean something non-legal.
The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase “right of the people” two other times, in the First Amendment’s Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment’s Search-and-Seizure Clause.
These instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not “collective” rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.
As the SCOTUS found in Heller, The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
[1]: https://www.constitution.org/1-Constitution/cons/wellregu.ht...