[spodefly]

Behold the Idiocy of the Gun-Grabbing Chimp.

1. "the people" in the First Amendment means *the people*;
2. "the people" in the Fourth Amendment means *the people*;
3. "the people" in the Ninth Amendment means, *the people*;
4. ...but "the people" in the Second Amendment (ratified in 1787) means the National Guard (which was created by an Act of Congress in 1917).

http://www.attrition.org/technical/firearms/chimp.html

[colorado tanker]

The collective rights argument is really silly, isn't it? Consider also the Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, clealy understood to affirm individual rights as a means of attracting votes to approve the Constitution. It's ridiculous to think that the second of those "Rights" was not conferred on the citizens, but on the government, when the government already had the "right" to arm the Army and Navy, including their reserves or "militias," in the original Constitution! No "collective rights" advocate has ever explained what authority the Second Amendment gave the government that it didn't already have in the Constitution, meaning the argument relies on the theory that Madison and his cohorts wrote a provision into the Constitution that has no meaning whatsoever, which reveals the absurdity of the position.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I like your 1,2,3,4.