“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”
Now flip the condition. If an individual is affiliated with a state-regulated militia, would that have any bearing on whether or not he could keep handguns or other firearms for private use in his home? Does affiliation with a state-regulated militia increase one's right to bear arms?
If the answer is yes, then the question is properly formulated, because it is testing the condition where the person is not affiliated with a state-regulated militia, which would, presumably, be the more restrictive case.
If the answer is no, and the right of the individual is the same whether or not he is affiliated with a state-regulated militia, then the question is improperly formulated because it specifies a condition which is not relevant.
Which means the answer must be yes. The right must be conditional on affiliation with a state-regulated militia, which means the right is collective.
Logic doesn't quite work that way.
That a line was drawn in this question simply avoids questions that are relevant on that side of the line but not this side. The issue at hand plainly does NOT involve a state-regulated militia, and questions regarding a state-regulated militia are not relevant.
The specified condition may indeed not be relevant; so long as the question is built on that condition, questions of relevancy of that condition are not important to the issue at hand and can be avoided.
So being associated with a State militia would give one enhanced rights? Sounds like discrimination to me. Which would be a violation according to the 2nd.
“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals ..."
This is a firm affirmation that individuals have a Second amendment right and it is not limited to specific groups or 'collectives'. The second part of the question,
"... who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”,
merely identifies which group of people are being targeted by the obnoxious DC law and whether as a consequence of that targeting, may have been denied those rights.
OTOH, if the SC wanted to signal a willingness to consider a collective right, then the question might have been phrased this way:
Do individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes, have Second Amendment rights which are violated by the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02?"