The problem with gun control activists is that they are beating their heads against the wrong part of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court in "DC Vs Heller" has ruled that the need for a militia is exactly why individual gun rights are preserved. By deciding on the individual right to own a gun, the Supreme Court has affirmed the standard that the US is intended to have a militia and it is protected by the Second Amendment. Their ruling tells us that, essentially, "the militia" and "the people" are legally one and the same. . . and guns are a common right they share. This is all as it should be legally, and anyone who pretends otherwise is trying to create a "legal fiction" out of the intents of the Second Amendment.
In my view, the gun regulation community should be attacking an existing and very old legal fiction rather than trying to create another new one. That fiction, in my view, is the current legal definition of "Militia" in the US militia code. If the militia is such a critical thing, protected by an absolute right to the tools of life and death, then it would probably be important to know how it is legally defined wouldn't it? It would be important to know if that definition was corrupted somewhere along the lines wouldn't it? Would you want an unconstitutional, rogue, branch of the military running around on American soil? How about a barely legal rogue branch that is wreaking havoc on society? Would you want it changed?
The militia the Second Amendment spoke of is very easily found in the original Uniform Militia Act of 1792 and other militia codes of the day. It was ALL able bodied males from 18-45. The "well regulated militia" was the entire population of gun holders. This was not an option. Even those who didn't want to own guns were forced to buy one for their militia duty. There was one and only one category of armed citizens, "well regulated militia." So, lets use the Supreme Courts own standards to look at the Second Amendment backwards. Individual gun rights are protected because "The individual" and "the militia" serve the same protected purpose in the eyes of the Court. So why, then, is "the individual" not "well regulated" today as he was then? The question is not: "does the citizen have no rights to a gun because he's not militia." The legal question should be: "does the citizen have the right NOT to be in a regulated militia while holding militia gun rights?"
