perfidy

The militia clause is not a qualifying clause - it does not change the meaning of the primary clause. At most, it explains the reason for the primary clause. In the constitution, and in state constitutions of the period, when the phrasing, "The right of the people... Shall not be infringed" always meant an individual right. When you insert "To bear arms" into that construct, it means exactly what it says. The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. That means the government shall not pass laws that infringe, or limit, my right to bear arms. Arms are weapons. An extreme reading would mean that there is no limitation on my right to bear arms - meaning that machine guns, missiles, tanks, artillery should all be legal for the citizen to possess.

The current attempts to ban various types of "assault weapons" (besides revealing the comprehensive ignorance of the writers of these laws - assault weapon means roughly, "a gun that looks very lethal" or "a gun I don't like.") are ridiculous given that among the weapons that the framers had in mind were the most advanced military long arms available at the time. At the very least, the 2nd Amendment should allow me to have fully automatic assault rifles like the M16 or AK47. 

Sidearms have been traditional military arms for officers for centuries. Even a militia style reading of the 2nd amendment would have to allow handguns. And for home defense, an unwieldy long arm is not the best weapon for use in the close confines of rooms and hallways in the average home. For trench warfare in WWI, troops often used pistols and sawed off shotguns - not four to five foot long rifles. Much better for close in fighting at close range. If you live out in the country, a rifle might be appropriate, but not in the city or urban areas. 

And anyway, rifles are more lethal than handguns - accurate at longer ranges, and more deadly in the effects of their bullets. Wouldn't a hypothetical gun banning person want to ban those before notoriously inaccurate, short range handguns? 

American courts recognize that self defense is a legitimate use of lethal force. And many in this country possess the means to deliver it. In England, first they registered weapons, then they took away handguns (sporting and hunting weapons will always be allowed! honest!) then they took away all guns. Now, it is illegal for a British citizen to defend himself in any manner, with or without a gun. Gun ownership is not essentially about home defense, sporting use, hunting, collecting, or any of these reasons. 

Gun ownership is political, and is as essential to our freedom as the other rights that are protected by the Bill of Rights. The writings of the founding generation make clear that they conceived of gun ownership as the bedrock right. It ensured all the others, because an armed populace - the militia - was the last defense agaisnt tyranny. Revolutionary era writers did not think of the militia like our modern national guard. It was the able-bodied male citizenry. All of them, who were expected to be armed. In times of war, the militia would enter federal service, but it existed outside the regular army that was permitted to the government by the constitution. 

Many of the founders felt that gun ownership (along with Christian faith) were the two things that would reliably produce good citizens for the Republic¹1ed. I almost said "Republican citizens" but decided to be more ecumenical. They felt that the discipline and responsibility necessary to be a law abiding gun owner are the same needed to be a good citizen in a republic - to be an independent, self reliant citizen; rather than a meek subject, dependent on the government for protection. 

I have recently read some interesting articles on this subject - including one that discussed the semantics of the 2nd Amendment. I will dig up those links over the weekend. But for the first 150 years of our republic, it was universally taken for granted that the 2nd Amendment granted an individual right to bear arms, and that there could be very little restriction of that right. Gun technology has not advanced so much in the last seventy years to make this irrelevant. There are very few restrictions on free speech (rightly), and most involve not speech itself, but the effects of that speech. (Libel or slander (can't remember which) and the "Yelling fire in a theater" scenario.) Murder and assault are illegal whether they are done with guns, knives, rocks, poison, gas trucks, dropping ten ton safes on people, or strangling them with your bare hands. There should be no restrictions on a citizen's rights to bear arms, as the constitution clearly states. (I will grant that felons and the mentally insane might be denied, and minors without adult supervision. Voting rights are denied to these categories of people without much fuss.)