Perhaps when you were in school you took classes on English. You know....the class where you talked about nouns, verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions. Perhaps if your teacher was particularly sadistic, you had to parse sentences. Anyway perhaps you remember the day they discussed:
DEPENDENT CLAUSES and
INDEPENDENT CLAUSES.
The independent clause contains the primary message of the sentence and the dependent does not. This is important because the verbage of the 2nd amendment contains an independent clause and a dependent clause.
Here are the words of the 2nd amendment:
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.
Independent Clause:
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
In addition to the people bearing arms they may organize themselves into militias and train without any govt interference. This clause was inspired by the American revolution in case the new govt would become tyranical, the people would have the arms necessary to overthrow the govt to bring back liberty. Perhaps some of you have noticed this word on US coins. L-I-B-E-R-T-Y. An example of liberty is the freedom to keep and bear arms or not to. It is a choice every American enjoys. Anyway here is the dependent clause.
Dependent Clause:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
Our founders believed that an armed militia was excellent insurance to keep a state free. These men were very wise because ALL STATES which suppress freedom do NOT allow the people to own arms....much less organize themselves into militias. This has been true throughout history from the times of the Roman Empire, Medievil Europe, Stalanist Russia, Nazi Germany, and modern dictatorships.
By the way although I disagree with the anti-gunners, the only anti-gunners I RESPECT are the ones that support repealing the 2nd amendment. At least they are honest enough to acknowledge the true meaning of the 2nd amendment and seek to dispose of it through legal means.
Here is some light reading from an anti-gunner who honest about the meaning of the 2nd amendment. I Believe he wrote a book called, "The Embarassing 2nd Amendment".
http://polyticks.com/polyticks/beararms/emb2nda2.htm
A well educated society, being necessary to a free state, the people's right to keep and read books shall not be infringed. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
*******Anyone want to claim that keeping and reading books is not an individual right. LOL. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]