ed, the second. " A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Let us examine this one part at a time. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state comma". This is ensuring the right of each state to have and regulate it's own militia. At the time of the writing of the constitution people were afraid of an over powering, dominating government like the government of England that they overthrew. This right would ensure that the Federal army wouldn't have total power as in the case of England. This would also give the states the independence they wanted while maintaining the unity of the whole country. Again, notice the comma. A comma is used to indicate the separation of ideas in a list. This comma can only mean one thing. This is were the idea of more than one right in an amendment come into play. Similar to the first amendment, this amendment guarantees more than one right. What is the second right guaranteed in the second amendment? The amendment continues " the right of the 'people' to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Here it is spelled out in black and white, in a simple statement. The people or each citizen has the right to keep and bear firearms. Proponents of gun control seem to forget this simple statement. They try to twist these simple idea to get people to believe that this only applies to the state militia. As we see here though, from a simple discussion and a little reasoning we can see just how simple an idea this is. The rational given for most modern gun control legislation is "Crime Control." The Brady Bill is one example. The Brady Bill is named after James Brady, who was shot by John Hinckley during an assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. Supporters of the Brady Bill used that incident to gain support for their gun control legislation, claiming it would reduce crime...
