"The Second Amendment provides: '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.' In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that '[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.' United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation."
How many "ordinary citizens" in the founding generation or today were/are familiar with Grotius, Vattel or any of Vattel's theories of citizenship? I think that if the term "natural born citizen" had in the minds of a few of the drafters some sort of special little meaning (in French or in English) and they wanted to bind Americans then or now to that special little meaning, then they were under an obligation to disclose that special little meaning in the text of the Constitution for "ordinary citizens" in the founding generation. I also think that, absent such a disclosure, "citizen at birth" is a very normal, natural NBC construction for ordinary citizens, then or now.
If some now want to impose on the rest of us that special little meaning, then they should amend the Constitution and add the appropriate language.
Agree completely. NBC to the Framers was very clear, they well knew what natural born subject meant, and transferred it, as several early legal writers (St George Tucker) and jurists pointed out.
Those who try to make it something else are reading something into the Constitution that was never there. As you say, if they want it in the Constitution, they will have to amend it.