Hope you don't mind the late response... been a little pressed for time lately.
The government restricts our right to own and operate certain kinds of arms, but not arms in general. The government does not, and should not IMO, restrict a citizen's general right to own firearms or force citizens to "prequalify" (via certification) before we are allowed to exercise that right.
Oddly enough, early intent was to allow citizens to own weapons suitable for military service. Now firearms that merely look like military weapons are prime targets for the gun-ban crowd.
Grammatically speaking there are several way to interpret this. To paraphrase the arguments:
The first phrase (a well regulated milita...) is the necessary precondition for the second phrase (the right to keep and bear arms...) In other words, the first phrase defines all the valid justifications for the right. When the first phrase is no longer applicable the right becomes invalid. This is a very cause-and-effect interpretation and I believe the one Bob espouses.
The first phrase describes one, but not all, of the necessary preconditions for the right. Invalidating the first phrase does not invalidate the other (unnamed) justifications for the right, thus it remains intact. However, if it were possible to discover all the necessary preconditions and invalid them, the right becomes invalid.
The first phrase does not describe a necessary precondition at all. It merely gives an example of why the right is included. If it were possible to invalidate all the possible examples of why the right is included, the right itself still remains intact. Revoking the right would require an amendment.
My biases show through... interpretation 3 makes the most sense to me. Why? One reason is that, contrary to popular opinion, the second amedment doesn't actually confer citizens with any rights whatsoever. It prevents the government from infringing on a right that has already been presupposed. However, all of the interpretations have supporters and valid explanations for why their interpretation is the correct one. If people way smarter than me can't agree on the correct interpretation I'm fairly certain I don't understand all the nuances involved.
I'm not a historian or constitutional scholar, but I don't believe this is correct. The revolutionary war ended in 1783. The bill of right was finalized in 1789 and ratified in 1791. Fighting the redcoats wasn't the issue.
The debate at the time was over the division of power between the federal government and state governments. Some felt there was a need for a national army; others worried about ceeding too much power to the federal government. If you look at the bill of rights as a whole, it addresses specific activities an oppressive government might take in an attempt to control its citizens. It, as a whole, acts as a way to limit the power of the federal government and protect the citizens from oppression. It's not about protecting the nation (which at the time was more of a loose collection of independent states) from foreign invaders.
Not true. I couldn't find any Supreme Court cases which even address the question of whether a militia for the common defense is a necessary precondition for the right until the recent DC v. Heller case. (In which the Supreme Court rejected interpretation #1 above.) Nearly all of the cases addressed the issue of whether the second amendment applies only to the federal government or if the states and individuals could violate another person's second amendment rights. Early cases held that the second amendment restrictions apply only to the federal government and not to states or individuals. (The first amendment was also limited to the federal government; however, the other amendments apparently were deemed to apply to the states as well as the federal government. Odd.) Modern (post 1890) interpretations of incorporation imply all the amendments apply to the states as well as the federal government. The question of incorporating the second amendment has not been specifically addressed yet.
Not a convincing one. If the second amendment is indeed obsolete and no longer needed, the correct way to address it is by constitutional amendment, not by creating FUD. (I'm looking at the gun ban crowd and the Brady Campaign, not at you.)
I fully agree with you here. Perhaps where we disagree is the point at which my right to own firearms infringes on your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I believe that my right to own, operate, and even carry a firearm does not, in and of itself, infringe on your right to happiness. How I use my firearms may infringe on your rights. If I'm in my backyard at 6 am shooting at crows with a shotgun, that infringes on your right. If I'm using a deer rifle to pick squirrels off my back fence without regard to the mall on the other side of the fence, that infringes on your right. If I get angry and shoot you, that infringes on your right. All of those things are already illegal and carry appropriate penalties.
Implementing laws to prevent the possibility of infringing on another's right is a very dangerous game--one that is likely to backfire.
(Incidentally, this is my main issue with the left in general. They seem to espouse legislation to insulate people from having anything "bad" happen to them. They seem to believe that through the proper legislation they can create an idyllic society where everyone is happy all the time. This is, I believe, a huge philosophical fallacy.)