Many things are different today than in 1792. But in order to determine if the second amendment protects an individual right or a collective right, we need to know what the Founders meant by "the people" in 1792.
And I contend that it wasn't every person or even every citizen.
No, Robert, Freemen is the term you are using for purposes of this discussion. Not I. I've already made that plain, and you are immediately trying to define the terms of this discussion in direct contravention to my earlier stated definition and limitations.
Nice try, tho. It's always a bit easier to control a discussion when you think you can set the definitions and scope of the discussions on the fly.
I don't play that game.
Getting back to the discussion and definition (!) of the term, "People", among other things, you must understand the bit about white male landowners was a bit of very important political reality. The Great Men who wrote our founding documents did what the could, given political realities at the time.
They couldn't abolish slavery, even if they had wanted to. It simply wasn't politically possible in that time. They couldn't introduce universal sufferage, even if they had wanted to, for the same reasons.
No, there was a lot they couldn't do. But they took the gamble that what they did do would be accepted by those who mattered at the time, and that their vision would grow even as the country, and the times, grew with it.
These revolutionary and (to established governments) dangerous documents were, by their stated goals, meant to offer their vision to posterity, and I'm quite sure they realized their posterity would be quite different than it was in their day.
These were men of vision, possessed of ideals in a certain time frame when giants truly walked the earth. I'm sure they realized that that time frame would not be frozen ad infinitum. Men of vision can think like this.
While they knew and acknowledged that a government was a necessary evil, they also knew that, given time, it is the wont of governments to expand and appropriate power at the expense of those it deems most likely to give up that power.
These Great Men were revolutionaries all. The knew that the corruption that envelopes men when assuming power would eventually work to undo the magnificent thing they had created.
Give that, they also knew a "reset button" was necessary to assure continued survival of the ideals embodied in the Constitution, and thus the very same ideals that they themselves had and offered up to the world.
That "reset button" is the Second Amendment.
At the time, it was undoubtedly felt that the best way to insure this was through the "militia", which at the time was politically palpable to most everyone. Again, they did what they felt they could politically do.
They did it thusly, stating it this way rather than, "Everybody gotta get guns", because they knew that down that path lay anarchy, and that simply wasn't an option. (Still isn't.)
They still most assuredly wanted as many people as possible to have the option of gun ownership. The simple fact that guns are mentioned at all should be the point of illumination. Men are free when they can tell the usurpers to bug off, and can back that up by force of arms.
Make no mistake - they still agree to be governed, but governed by a reasonableness that the Framers offered.
The evil that they, and we, fear now stalks the land. In the coming days, the very genius of their words will be tested as never before. It is good that we still have the guns.
But if the government ever comes to confiscate those guns, under whatever ruse, and they succeed, a very dark time will fall over the planet, for as Ronald Reagan and countless other Conservatives have warned, America is mankind's last, best hope, and if we fall, there is no place to hide.
It only seems to happen infrequently today, but at every turn, when government seeks to expropriate power at our expense, the automatic reply must always be a resounding "NO"!
And ultimately, the best way to insure that is to make sure we have, and keep, the guns.
CA....
Really? The Articles of Confederation mentioned an armed Militia, but that was about it. The U.S. Constitution mentions an armed Militia. I don't know where you get that idea from.
Jefferson wanted the Virginia State Constitution to read, "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms". It was rejected.
If Jefferson couldn't even get this language passed in his own state, what makes you think it would have passed at the federal level?
"and you are immediately trying to define the terms of this discussion in direct contravention to my earlier stated definition and limitations."
I wasn't aware of that. Please tell me the difference between your term "free men" as it was used in 1792 and my term "freemen" as defined as "the people" or white, male, citizen landowners.
I see no difference.
Sure, "free men" today encompasses women. But so does "the people".