The United Stated Constitution never gave the right to keep and bear arms to individual citizens. It took activist judges to do that, The founders never thought to give such a right, because such a right was considered as GIVEN. Of COURSE people had the right to keep and bear arms--there was NEVER any DOUBT about such a law. Almost as many people had guns as had knives, and the Constitution never gave citizens the right to carry knives either--why should it? Such a right was a GIVEN.
What the citizens didn't have the right to do was to form State Militias. Citizens did NOT have the right to band together to defend their State from a strong Central government. That is what the second amendment allowed. It was never an individual right--until acitivist judges read it and disregarded the words and put in their own meaning of what they wanted the words to say.
The founders had no reason to put in the right to bear arms since such a right was a GIVEN--why would they put such a GIVEN right in the Constitution. Citizens already had that right---it would be like putting the right to carry a sword in the Constitution.
But the Founders wanted to protect the Citizens of a State from a Strong Central government, so the Founders set up a possible opposing force to such an occurance. They gave the States the right to protect its citizens from a strong central government by allowing the States to form their own State Militia for the protection of its citizens, and the State Militia would be made up of citizens of that State.
So--the Founders put together the second 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.
A well regulated Mlitia--defined as a well regulated group of men. A Militia was not an individual--it was a group of men. In individual was a militia member. The Founders didn't want groups of armed men roaming the countryside with no regulations.
being necessary to the security of a free State--Here it tells what the well regulated militia was created to do--protect the security and freedom of a State (Notice the capitalized State), from not only a strong central government, but from all threats--even threats from its own citizens--like Kent State.
the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Looking at the opinion of this court and preceding courts, it looks like the Courts think the Founders were STUPID for saying such a thing. The opinion of the court is that ---Of COURSE such a right may be infringed--the Founders never intended for individuals to have cannons and warships---the Founders simply didn't know what they were talking about. See for yourself.
www.rightsidenews.com
They explain how the amendment has been ignored right from the beginning and changed to mean that the phrase "shall not infringed" simply doesn't exist.
However, when looked at from the Founders view, and the purpose of the second amendment, they realized that if the Well Regulated Militia didn't have legal access to the same arms as the Federal Government, the Second Amendment was useless. So--they granted unlimited access to all arms to the well regulated militias to protect the State and its citizens from a Strong Central government or any other attackers. When they said--shall not be infringed--they were serious.
The second amendment words were not changed--just their meaning somehow. The new meaning of the second amendment is:
Individuals have the right to keep and bear arms, but such right may be infringed as the government sees fit.