[upsdriver]

The second amendment bans the federal government from restricting the gun rights of individual citizens within the states. However, it doesn’t ban states from regulating the crap out of them.

The Second Amendment guarantees the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, unrestricted. The states are thereby prohibited from placing restrictions on the citizenry. At least that's the way I read it.

[Engineer_Soldier]

The Second Amendment guarantees the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, unrestricted. The states are thereby prohibited from placing restrictions on the citizenry. At least that's the way I read it.

In the original system (pre Civil War), the Constitution was mainly an agreement between the states (as sovereign "mini nations") and the administration of the federation of the states (what we know as the giant federal government today thanks to the outcome of the Civil War). The people of each state developed their own constitutions for each state that became their individual agreement with the state. Back then, the individual wasn't that concerned with the federal government because it was pretty powerless and the state was very powerful.