Why does anyone have such trouble with the language of 2A? To refer to the right of the people, means the people have a right. And we well know the Founders’ position on the source of rights: it is NOT convenience, security or practicality.
The militia depends on the right, not the right on the militia.
On another thread, I offered some of the Founders own words to illustrate their simple 2nd A dictum: [emphasis added]
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
--James Madison
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
--Thomas Jefferson
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
-- George Mason
"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American."
-- Tench Coxe
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion."
--Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716)
"No freeman shall [ever] be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]"
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776, in Thomas Jefferson's_Papers
"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
--George Mason (1725-1792), June 14, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
--Samuel Adams (1722-1803), in_Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
-- Tenche Coxe to James Madison. Federal Gazette. 1789
"The great objective is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
--Patrick Henry
"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."
-- Thomas Jefferson
I cannot understand how these simple ideas and utterances of the Founders can be miscontrued, especially this one:
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
--Thomas Jefferson
Because of what it says. They don't like what it says, so they argue that it means something else. That's called 'denial'.