The Phrase "A Well Regulated Militia" Has No Impact On Your Rights

Those opposed to individual rights and who believe that a woman being raped is morally superior to her being able to defend herself against a (generally) larger and stronger male attacker like to look at the 2nd Amendment and try and argue that the clause "A Well Regulated Militia" at the beginning of it somehow limits the intent of the very plainly worded "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed."

It is important to note that it very plainly says, "The Right of the People."  It does not say The Right of the "Militia" or the "Army" or "Specially Trained Operational Units".   And it would be odd if sandwiched in the middle of a bunch of rights that the government is barred from taking from the people it were to throw in some specially privileged group.

So, let us be very clear that the phrase, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" means no more than if the 1st Amendment said, "Because some people think Purple is the best color and others just love Jesus, Congress shall make no law...."

And for those who think that those who wrote and approved of that document thought they must have meant only the muskets available at the time.  Let us remember that these were generally very smart people who knew technology would advance over time and who had just fought for their right to secede against the greatest military power on the planet.  They knew what they were doing and what they were protecting and it wasn't the right to hunt deer.

The musket argument is no different than suggesting that the 1st Amendment's protection of free speech was limited to the movable type and one page at a time printing presses available at that time since the framers could not possibly have imagined the telegraph, radio, high-speed printing presses, television or the Internet.  They fully expected that any individual would be able to arm themselves with firepower equal to any typical, regular soldier or officer of the military [note: before someone who lacks reading comprehension skills tries to say something about nuclear or biological weapons, read the statement again where it says "typical, regular soldier or officer of the military" - hint, they don't generally give just anybody the pass codes to "the football"].

Now that we have completely settled this debate, we can move on.  And anytime some anti-rights, pro-crime, anti-self defense, apoplectic, promoter of all things statist throws out "...well regulated militia..." in one of your spirited Facebook (or other) debates, you can just repost this article.  Because, that is what I'm going to do.