OK, Hussein, so what if the Texas legislature passes a law, signed by the governor, making all Texans over the age of 16 members of the state militia, and makes the M16 standard issue equipment that a militia member must bring to his or her monthly muster? Are you prepared, you babbling Leftist idiot (but I repeat myself) for 12 million or so new full-autos to be in the hands of the populace?
Even if you take the collectivist position on the Second Amendment—that is, that the first clause of the Amendment matters most, and that the purpose of gun ownership is to serve the state militia—handing out M16’s to the populace would be fine. In fact, it’d make a lot more sense, because it’d be a lot more useful for national defense and whatnot. In fact, the only real precedent on what the Amendment means, United States v Miller, 307 US 174 (1939), just says that having a sawed-off shotgun isn’t related to a militia, which is fairly hard to deny.
But Obama didn’t say that; he said explicitly that there is an individual right to owning a gun. This is especially important because the Supreme Court granted cert on (in fact, just received amicus briefs on) the DC case that could finally decide whether the individual or the collective interpretation is right. (They could also avoid the issue entirely if they wanted; nobody really knows what they’ll do.) But you really can trust him on this point, because it’s not out of line with liberal legal academia at all. There’s a huge trend now towards an individual-rights interpretation now in the law schools, based (The leading article, if it helps, is Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 Yale L J 637 (1989).) The political fight, of course, will be over how much you can “reasonably” regulate firearms. But there’s not much reason to suspect him on the individual-rights point.