It is obvious that the 2nd Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the pre-existing right of individuals to own military type small arms. Federal court rulings support exactly this view. Has McCrystal read the Constitution?
Lessons the Founders gained from the Revolutionary War included the idea that ad hoc, untrained, ill-armed militias were unreliable and ineffective at fighting a conventional war, as then understood. The 2nd A’s enigmatic words “well-regulated” did not imply “government micromanagement” in the modern sense of “EPA regulations” (a concept that did not exist then). They address the need for militia to be armed with “regulation” weapons (i.e., the same as REGULAR army), and to have “regulation” training in their use, so that units could fight cohesively and predictably. Other provisions of the Constitution require Congress to provide for arming and training the militia — a duty they manifestly fail to perform (our tiny National Guard is obviously not the militia). Interesting how the Founders trusted the People more than the very government that they, themselves, were creating. Do McCrystal, Obama, Finestein, et al., trust the People?
My old (printed in the 1960's) ROTC manual defined "well regulated" as "uniform in training and organization", in the sense of having a uniformly high level of training and organization.