The Second Amendment

The second amendment is a single sentence, containing 27 words in total. Before we consider its legal interpretation, let's look at it grammatically for a moment.

A sentence is a complete thought, consisting of, at a minimum, a noun and a verb. In this particular sentence, the noun is militia, and the verb is shall. Granted, it's a very poorly constructed and ambiguous sentence, and probably deliberately so, to appease competing interests when it was written.

The first 13 words, out of the 27 total (one word less than half the total number of words in the amendment), state:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state...

Now if we're going to start slicing and dicing our laws and ignoring the parts we don't like, then we might as well remove the word "not" from the Ten Commandments.

The best example of a militia is our National Guard. They assemble periodically for training and exercises and have a well defined command structure. They are a disciplined organization given the responsibility of providing help to Americans in times of crisis and are called upon to assist in our national defence when needed. The militia is a collective body, not an individual.

The Supreme Court in their 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller, 5 to 4 decision, got it wrong.