The Armed Citizen

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT II

“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.”

The above is an exact copy of the second amendment in it’s entirety including punctuation, capitalization and structure. Try as one might, it is difficult to parse this amendment’s wording into anything other than an enshrined promise and belief for all time that it is important for individual citizens to be armed at their individual discretion. It says clearly that you and I have a right to be armed that can never be taken from us. Modern English grammar and usage might construct this amendment somewhat differently but that cannot be an excuse to rewrite and distort the meaning of a very clear statement. That we have a modern Federal Army and States’ National Guards does not dilute the clear meaning of ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms’. Nor can ‘shall not be infringed’ possibly be misinterpreted to mean ‘can or may be infringed’. If we were to modernize the amendment’s language I would offer the following; “Because private citizens may be required to defend themselves or assist in defending national security or aid in assuring civil order in instances of dire emergency, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. This is what armed citizen and militias are for and this is what the founders intended.