[wastedyears]

What if the entirety of the Second Amendment read “The right of the People to keep and bear Arms?”

[robertpaulsen]

"What if the entirety of the Second Amendment read “The right of the People to keep and bear Arms?”

That's like me asking, "What if the entirety of the Second Amendment read 'A well regulated Miltia is necessary to the security of a free state'."

[William Tell]

wastedyears said: What if the entirety of the Second Amendment read “The right of the People to keep and bear Arms?”

It's meaning would be the same.

I was pleased to see in one of the briefs filed in Heller that the topic of prefatory language has been addressed quite thoroughly by the courts. It has been recognized that such language does not limit the scope of the operative clause.

[supercat]

What if the entirety of the Second Amendment read “The right of the People to keep and bear Arms?”

Did you mean to add "shall not be infringed"? Absent the "militia" phrase, a tyrant could reasonably argue that it only protected, say, hunting or sporting weapons. As it is, however, it protects at minimum those weapons which could be usefully taken up as arms in a well-functioning group of citizens joined together to defend their community.