This is the text of the second amendment: "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." From its advent until somewhere around the mid to late 20th century it was interpreted universally as an individual right. The founding fathers and others of the time wrote extensively on this and it was not controversial for centuries.
Wiki provides numerous examples of early commentary here. [1] I find the most compelling and clear to be that of Judge Thomas M. Cooley, which I'll include at the bottom due to its length. In brief form: he posits that if the law were constrained only to the militia, and not the masses of people that may comprise it, then it would be quite a pointless amendment as the very government it seeks to protect individuals from could undermine it by inaction or neglect in regards to the formation of that militia.
What happened in 2008 was DC vs Heller. [2] After DC banned guns in 1975, a police officer found himself in a situation where he was able to have a gun during his line of duty but was left unarmed in the increasingly dangerous and deteriorating neighborhood that he lived in. He petitioned the NRA for help fighting the law. They refused, so he went to the Cato Institute. They (Heller along with 5 other citizens) filed suit, it made its way to the supreme court, and the supreme court unambiguously affirmed that it's indeed an individual right.
"It might be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. But the law may make provision for the enrolment of all who are fit to perform military duty, or of a small number only, or it may wholly omit to make any provision at all; and if the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms; and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables the government to have a well-regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order."
> In brief form: he posits that if the law were constrained only to the militia, and not the masses of people that may comprise it, then it would be quite a pointless amendment as the very government it seeks to protect individuals from could undermine it by inaction or neglect in regards to the formation of that militia.
It should be noted that the Bill of Rights was originally interpreted to only limit the actions of the federal government, not the state governments. It should also be noted that one of the major events on the road to the American Revolution was the British government's attempts to disarm the militias in Massachusetts, which resulted in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, so the theory that the government might permit the militia but outlaw its arms was not mere theory but an actual historic act well-known to the drafters.
The modern controversy is whether or not the right in the Second Amendment is a right to keep arms is inherently a military right [1] or if it protects personal arms entirely separate from military contexts. The text isn't particularly helpful, and I suspect in large part because for the people who wrote it, there wasn't a separation between the right to personal use versus the right to military use--if you could use them, you were a member of the militia.
[1] I'm using military as a catch-all term here, which would include militia, civil defense, police, and other similar occupations. In the 18th century, these duties would have been performed by the military or the militia, as dedicated police forces had yet to be invented.
Perhaps the militia, as a social institution, would correct the issues we see with gun ownership in the US today.
The militia is always in its construction open to everyone, whereas the gun community is seen as a kind of subculture today.
The militia brings people together in a context where the underlying story about arms is not one of power, violence or even self-defence but rather one of duty, personal discipline, safety and cooperation.
The militia provides a way for people to learn a lot about firearms and firearms safety before buying a gun, as opposed to the situation in the US we have today where often the requirements for an intro course include one's own gun.
As a social institution, militia would not necessarily have to be government funded.
It's interesting that militia are looked at with a lot more suspicion than individual gun ownership. Buy a gun as a mentally-healthy individual with no prior criminal record, and nobody bats an eye. Get together with a few hundred of your gun-toting buddies to train together, and the FBI is probably going to come knocking, unless you're a private security contractor with an obvious profit motive.
Possibly says a lot about what the government does or does not consider a threat.
Probably better to think in terms of a "military philosophy society" or something like that -- the idea isn't to build a logistics chain for conducting combat operations (that is what a militia has to do) but rather provide a pro-social context for people to learn skills and safety and military history. In the event of a conflict, the members of such an organisation would join the military, not deploy as a separate group with their own colours or what have you (which is what a militia would do).
Can you elaborate on what you mean in regards to the Bill of Rights being interpreted to only apply to the federal government? This seems to be in contradiction the supremacy clause.
In short, until the 14th Amendment (and even for some time afterwards), it was generally held that the Bill of Rights only bound Congress. The 1st Amendment starts with "Congress shall make no law," explicitly limiting it to the federal government. While the other amendments don't explicitly mention Congress or states, the original proposals did explicitly include mention of states in some of them, which were struck out before being accepted by Congress.
Thomas M. Cooley and you are both right, the Second Amendment is now completely useless, as it was written in a time when individual states operated their own militias who were actively being disarmed by the "tyrannical" government at the time. Now they don't and therefore aren't being disarmed, so it can go away entirely.
Trying to warp this specific Amendment written 220+ years ago to serve as guidance for modern times is a farce, and has been manipulated by special interests into causing the murder of hundreds of thousands of people.
Thomas M. Cooley recognized that, but didn't draw the better conclusion; that the Second Amendment needs to be revoked.
2008 was a substantial setback, but it isn't the end of the conversation. The Second Amendment will be the thing our grandkids shame us most about.
Wiki provides numerous examples of early commentary here. [1] I find the most compelling and clear to be that of Judge Thomas M. Cooley, which I'll include at the bottom due to its length. In brief form: he posits that if the law were constrained only to the militia, and not the masses of people that may comprise it, then it would be quite a pointless amendment as the very government it seeks to protect individuals from could undermine it by inaction or neglect in regards to the formation of that militia.
What happened in 2008 was DC vs Heller. [2] After DC banned guns in 1975, a police officer found himself in a situation where he was able to have a gun during his line of duty but was left unarmed in the increasingly dangerous and deteriorating neighborhood that he lived in. He petitioned the NRA for help fighting the law. They refused, so he went to the Cato Institute. They (Heller along with 5 other citizens) filed suit, it made its way to the supreme court, and the supreme court unambiguously affirmed that it's indeed an individual right.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
Full quote of Judge Cooley:
"It might be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon. But the law may make provision for the enrolment of all who are fit to perform military duty, or of a small number only, or it may wholly omit to make any provision at all; and if the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms; and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables the government to have a well-regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order."