I have no doubt that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right. I also have no doubt that for the most part the Constitution has been voided over the past 100 years or so.

With that in mind, given the chance for the government to decide between individual rights and government control then the government will choose control.

I have a hunch the DC gun controllers will win. I hope I am wrong.

This statement, an analogy of the second amendment, does not deny illiterate people the right to keep and bear books. The 2A does not deny civilians the right to keep and bear arms.

The right of every individual to keep and bear arms is balanced by the responsibility to marshal those arms in response to any lawful call to defend our free State. In 21st century English:

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, so that a well-regulated militia can be mustered whenever such muster is deemed necessary to secure a free State.”

The militia is a potential entity which an armed populace makes possible:

- The passengers of Flight 93 proved that a well-regulated militia can be formed anywhere at any time.

- The well-regulated militia of flight attendants Hermis Moutardier and Cristina Jones defended the US against terrorist attack from the Shoe Bomber.

- As New Orleans residents learned in 2005, there need be no foreign invasion to trigger the lawful need for a militia to guarantee a free State.

All of these militias successfully secured a free state where the combined law enforcement, security, and military services of several countries, including the US, failed.

The second amendment calls us all to preparedness. It makes preparedness an imperative, and makes awareness of your duty to be prepared to defend life, liberty and their pursuits your civic responsibility.

Well-regulated militias of one, background-check approved, trained, responsible, safe, law-abiding, and armed, secure a free state against criminals every day in this country. Though I will never hear about the crimes they prevent, since those crimes never happen, yet, I am grateful for these people, who abide their responsibility, and I thank them.

I invite you, if you abide yours, to express your wish for the good citizens of our nation’s capital to be allowed to abide theirs.

One could say the same thing about the 5th Amendment’s language about Takings, and look how the Supreme Court screwed that one up.

The grammatical rationalizations used to defend the “no individual right” interpretation are, at their core, astoundingly silly.