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Definitions

No, the specific words of the Second Amendment are not important. And yes, indulging the idea that they are is generally counterproductive. As thoroughly as this is explained in Lie #1, however, again the purpose of that and the related sections is not so much to convince as to eliminate the confusion that many will suffer after reading the quotes. In that spirit, below is the definitive answer to what the most controversial wording actually does mean.

“Well Regulated”
As surprisingly acknowledged by Stanford history professor Jack Rakove, a shameless “collective right” perpetrator,​
Well-regulated in the 18th century tended to be something like well-organized, well- armed, well-disciplined. It didn’t mean ‘regulation’ in the sense that we use it now, in that it’s not about the regulatory state…It means the militia was in an effective shape to fight.
Troops who had been regulated were thus known as “regular troops” or simply “regulars,” and while it’s tempting to cite some of the many quotes that illustrate this concept, in light of Rakove’s admission just one should suffice. According to an 1840 statement by Joseph Story, generally considered one of the greatest Supreme Court justices of all time,
[Though] the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition…to be rid of all regulations.
“Regulation” in the context of militia service, in other words, referred to the government forcing people to bear arms—not preventing them from doing so.
“Militia”
Under current US law,
The classes of the militia are—

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not
members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
This is the updated version of a 1792 act specifying that “every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years…shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia,” a concept reflected in the numerous quotes on this site which convey that “the militia” and “the people” are essentially interchangeable terms.
“The People”
The identity of “the People” was settled in 1990 when the Supreme Court ruled that
‘the people’ protected by the…First and Second Amendments…refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.
Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, two of the most liberal of the last 50 years, went even further with a dissent which read in part,
Bestowing rights and delineating protected groups would have been inconsistent with the Drafters’ fundamental conception of a Bill of Rights as a limitation on the Government’s conduct with respect to all whom it seeks to govern. It is thus extremely unlikely that the Framers intended the narrow construction of the term ‘the people’ presented today by the majority.”
Brennan and Marshall never say their analysis doesn’t apply to Second Amendment, despite the majority opinion’s explicit reference to it—indicating that even as late as 1990, “collective right” lunacy had not fully sunk its parasitic hooks into the left.
“Bear Arms”
University of Baltimore law professor Kenneth Lasson expresses the typical “collective right” take on this phrase when he claims,
The right to ‘bear arms’ is aimed at a political end. It is a distinct military phrase having
political implications. A person in the pursuit of game or target shooting might carry his rifle, yet it would never be said that he had borne arms (p. 137).
Never. Never, ever, says the highly esteemed and totally honest professor. Strange, then, that a 1779 Virginia bill drafted by Thomas Jefferson and presented by James Madison mandates that one who violates hunting regulations will temporarily lose the ability to “bear a gun out of his inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty,” and that British naval officer John Cartwright stated in 1799, “To BEAR ARMS, means, 1st, to possess and use arms, whether it be as a professional soldier, or as a private citizen.” Several early state constitutions also contain the phrase “That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state,” and a 1791 text even notes that “The orang-outang…knows how to bear arms, to attack his enemies with stones, and to defend himself with a club.”
More directly on point, the “Bear Arms” entry in the 1897 American and English Encyclopaedia
of Law reads,
This phrase, as used in the constitutional provision reserving to the people the right to
keep and ‘bear’ arms, has been held to include the right to load, shoot, and use arms as
such weapons are ordinarily used, and not to be confined to the simple right of carrying
arms upon the person.”
Last but not least, none other than Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote,

I would read the words [‘carries a firearm’] to indicate not merely keeping arms on one’s premises or in one’s vehicle, but bearing them in such manner as to be ready for use as a weapon…Surely a most familiar meaning is, as the Constitution's Second Amendment (‘keep and bear Arms’) and Black’s Law Dictionary indicate: ‘wear, bear, or carry…upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose…of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.’

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”
Everything on this site essentially points to the fact that the Second Amendment could have read simply, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” so knowledge of what the individual words mean still doesn’t tell us why the Founders attached the seemingly unnecessary clause responsible for so much national anguish over so many decades—but there is an identifiable answer.
​
While it’s commonly believed that the Founders planned for the country to rely almost entirely on state militias rather than a standing army for national defense, they were in fact quite conflicted about how practical this would be. As George Washington wrote back in 1776, for example,
To place any dependence on Militia, is, assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just
dragged from the tender scenes of domestick life…when opposed to Troops regularly
train’d, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes
them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows …The jealousies of a standing
army, and the evils to be apprehended from one, are remote; and in my judgment, situated and circumstanced as we are, not at all to be dreaded; but the consequence of wanting one…is certain, and inevitable ruin.
This why, in debate during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, George Mason
being sensible that an absolute prohibition of standing armies in time of peace might be unsafe, and wishing at the same time to insert something pointing out and guarding against the danger of them, moved to preface the clause (Art I sect. 8) ‘To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia &c’ with the words ‘And that the liberties of the people may be better secured against the danger of standing armies in time of peace.’
James Madison supported this suggestion because “as armies in time of peace are allowed on all hands to be an evil, it is well to discountenance them by the Constitution,” but Gouverneur Morris “opposed the motion as setting a dishonorable mark of distinction on the military class of Citizens” and it failed. The conundrum illustrated by this incident—how to acknowledge disfavor toward a standing army without smearing professional soldiers as representing “danger” or “evil”—provides the most plausible explanation for why Madison two years later introduced what became the Second Amendment as,
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and
well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously
scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
The final clause was removed because of concern that it could allow the government to “declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms,” and a motion to insert the words “‘for the common defence,’ next to the words ‘bear arms’” (p. 77) was likewise defeated. The Founders took pains to avoid verbal footholds that could be exploited by the inevitable history-twisting authoritarians of the future, but in trying to preserve a small nod to the advisability of constraining the size of the military, they failed.

“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.”

According to Yale professor of constitutional law Akhil Reed Amar, a Democratic donor who has won numerous prestigious awards and been cited by Supreme Court justices in several dozen cases, the Second Amendment could be translated as, “An armed and militarily trained citizenry being conducive to freedom, the right of the electorate to organize itself militarily shall not be infringed.”

This conclusion is supported by—you guessed it!—quite a few historical quotes. Some of the statements below appear in other areas of this site, some don’t, but together they express two basic truths:

  1. Whatever reservations the Founders had about the effectiveness of the militia in actual combat against a foreign nation, there was no alternative to it for the deterrence of federal oppression. As for the applicability of this to modern times, speculation about the likelihood of success in defeating “tanks and planes” is completely irrelevant—no force can hold territory without ground troops, and a potentially tyrannical government must at the very least be forced to weigh the costs of its actions rather than simply do whatever it wants. 

  2. This deterrent was to be created by allowing the entire population to possess and train with arms, subject to reasonable state regulation. In the case of foreign or domestic aggression, the People could then assemble under the command of their respective state governors and militia officers as a “well-regulated militia” to either supplement or counter the professional military. Especially in regard to the latter scenario, it’s absurd to argue that the modern National Guard alone is sufficient—it is now part of the US Army Total Force, its members swear an oath to “obey the orders of the President,” and sections 252 and 253 of the Insurrection Act allow a president to deploy the military on US soil.

Thomas Jefferson, 1/26/1811

“While [one man’s usurping force] may paralyse the single state in which it happens to be encamped, sixteen others…rise up on every side, ready organised, for deliberation by a constitutional legislature, & for action by their Governor, constitutionally the commander of the militia of the state, that is to say, of every man in it, able to bear arms; and that militia too regularly formed into regiments & battalions.

Resolutions of a New York City meeting headed by Henry Rutgers and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., 8/10/1814

“The national government has augmented our security by fortifications, troops and a floating force. The state has extended its care, and caused other works of defence to be erected. The common council of the city, has labored to insure out safety. It only remains that the sons of liberty come forth...The citizens are the safeguards of a free state. Their right to keep and bear arms has never been infringed.”

 

Rutgers was a Revolutionary War hero, philanthropist, and member of the New York State Legislature; Wolcott served as secretary of the treasury and governor of Connecticut.

William H. Seward, 2/11/1831

“There is no doubt that the framers of the Constitution intended to secure, as two fundamental principles of government:—The right of the people, at all times, to keep and bear arms; and, secondly, the principle—That a portion of the people (not limited) should be enrolled, organized, armed, and to some extent disciplined. These principles were the basis of the militia system.”

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Seward served as governor of New York, US senator from that state, and US secretary of state He “was known as a great advocate for the defenseless” and opposed slavery.

Supreme Court of Georgia, 7/1/1846

“The language of the second amendment is broad enough to embrace both Federal and State governments—nor is there anything in its terms which restricts its meaning…The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such, merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia.”

 

Hon. EA Nisbet also served as US congressman, as did Hon. Hiram B. Warner; Hon. Joseph H. Lumpkin was offered a federal judgeship but declined.

The Science of Government in Connection with American Institutions, 1866

“The right to keep and bear arms gives the people power to resist effectually, if need be, the encroachments of usurpation and arbitrary power. To the fact that nearly all the American people are accustomed to the use of arms, is it in a great measure owing that large armies can be organized and disciplined in a very short time.”

An Introduction to the Constitutional Law of the United States, 1868

“The object of this clause is to secure a well-armed militia…But a militia would be useless unless the citizens were enabled to exercise themselves in the use of warlike weapons. To preserve this privilege, and to secure to the people the ability to oppose themselves in military force against the usurpations of government, as well as against enemies from without, [the] government is forbidden by any law or proceeding to invade or destroy the right to keep and bear arms.”

George L. Potter, 9/22/1875

“The People, by inherent right, constitute the militia of the State, and as such have the right to organize and bear arms. This great right is recognised, not granted, in the Constitution of the United States…It is plain, from the nature of the case, that the government cannot, by its own neglect, nor by any prohibition, in any degree infringe this great inherent right of a free people to keep and bear arms and to organize as the militia of the State, and in a proper case to act as such.

 

This Amendment recognizes not only the individual right of self defense, but also the right and duty of citizens to protect the community. It declares this Natural Militia, entitled of inherent right to ‘keep and bear arms,’ to be ‘necessary to the security of a free State.’”

 

Potter was a prominent Mississippi attorney.

Albert O. Wright, An Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, 1883

“[The Second Amendment] is to secure the rights of citizens to bear arms, and to be trained in military exercises…Should the time ever come when a usurper tries to gain power against the will of the people, this provision may be found of value. In that case, the people could organize and defend their liberties.”

 

Wright was a Union Army soldier, pastor, and educator who served as supervisor of Indian schools for the US Department of the Interior.

Rep. John H. Rogers (AR), 12/8/1890

“One of the objects of the constitutional guaranty in reference to the right to bear arms was to have a well-regulated militia, that our young men might be trained to a familiarity with the use of firearms, not only guns, but every class of weapons used in the Army and the Navy.”

Francis Newton Thorpe, 1894

“Congress cannot pass laws forbidding the people to keep and bear arms. This restriction refers primarily to the right of the people to constitute a militia for the defence of their rights…Congress can declare war and call out the militia for the public defence, but it cannot take the right to self-protection away from the people.”

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Thorpe was Professor of American Constitutional History at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading member of the American Historical Association.

Beecher’s Constitution and Civil Government of the United States, 1901

“The effect of [the Second Amendment] is to encourage every citizen to constantly be on familiar terms with the use of arms, by guaranteeing him the right to always keep them at hand, and to encourage him to join the militia organized by the several states in order that should there be any necessity for bearing arms against the common enemy, he would be in a position to do so the more efficiently.”

Lt. Col. James Parker, 8/1903

“Rifle ranges also are needed, not only for the National Guard, but also for the citizen population. To shoot well is a large part of the education of the soldier; and if the Government can arouse such an interest in shooting, in not only the organized but also the unorganized militia, that our male population shall be familiar with the accurate use of the rifle, we shall have gone far towards evening up the advantage the foreigner gains by his universal conscription. Much can be accomplished in this direction, if the United States will offer free the use of the military rifle on ranges to be established near our large towns. Such ranges would also be available for the instruction of the National Guard.” (p. 284, first full paragraph)

 

Parker was acting assistant US adjutant general.

Horace Jewell Fenton, 1914

“The purpose of [the Second Amendment] evidently is twofold: first, to check the government from arbitrarily disarming the people and reducing them to the condition of serfs; secondly, to allow men so to familiarize themselves with weapons as to keep the nation ever ready for emergencies. This amendment is not necessary to give the States the right to maintain militia, for that right is recognized elsewhere in the Constitution.”

 

Fenton taught at the US Naval Academy.

Pres. Woodrow Wilson, 12/7/1915

“We do believe in a body of free citizens ready and sufficient to take care of themselves and of the governments which they have set up to serve them. In our constitutions themselves we have commanded that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,’ and our confidence has been that our safety in times of danger would lie in the rising of the nation to take care of itself, as the farmers rose at Lexington.

 

But war has never been a mere matter of men and guns. It is a thing of disciplined might. If our citizens are ever to fight effectively upon a sudden summons, they must know how modern fighting is done, and what to do when the summons comes to render themselves immediately available and immediately effective.”

Lt. Col. Townsend Whelen on behalf of Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis, 2/6/1930

“The war department is also opposed to any measure to keep pistols and revolvers out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. We want to see them made familiar with the weapons.”

Asst. Secretary of War Frederick H. Payne, 3/4/1931

“The infantry will constitute the main mass of our armed forces, in any major emergency of the future. I can conceive of no future developments that will nullify the rifle’s supreme power…How the infantryman will get there, what artillery support he will get on the way, may all be changed, but when he gets there his mission will be the same, he will still be the arbiter of battle and the weapon that will make the basis of his power, without sacrifice of mobility, will be the rifle…[Artillery, tanks, aircraft, etc. are] essential and potent only as they protect and assist the man with the rifle as he goes to grips with the enemy…

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For years, accumulative and persistent efforts have been made to completely disarm the United States and its citizens. The fight was first aimed at the elimination of the pistol and revolver. Anti-pistol legislation was pushed in practically all the State Legislatures. Then efforts were begun to take the rifle and shotgun…This legislation [to outlaw rifles larger than .22 caliber] would have taken the rifle from the citizens of a State that was won from the wilderness by the rifle, liberated from tyranny by the rifle, and defended in its liberties and sovereignty through 150 years by the rifle…When we Americans think of the rifle we think in terms of the steady hand, the clear eye and the courageous heart. These are all worth keeping.”

Rep. Wright Patman (TX), 8/13/1941

“There is a provision in the Constitution that the militia under certain conditions can be called into the national service. Then it was said, ‘Where will our protection be? The Executive then will have control of both the Army and the militia of the States.’ The answer was, ‘The people have a right to bear arms. The people have a right to keep arms; therefore, if we should have some Executive who attempted to set himself up as dictator or king, the people can organize themselves together and, with the arms and ammunition they have, they can properly protect themselves’…If we permit the people here in Washington to compel the people all over the Nation to turn in their arms, their ammunition, then the Chief Executive, whoever he is, gets control of the Army and the militia, how will the people be able to protect themselves?” (p. 7102, bottom of 1st col.)

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Patman “favored nearly all of the numerous New Deal economic and social reforms” and supported the domestic programs of presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He coauthored the Federal Anti-Price Discrimination Act and was instrumental in the passage of the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934, the Full Employment Act of 1946, and the Housing Acts of 1946-1965. He was also the first to call for investigation into Watergate.

Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, editorial in The National Guardsman, the official publication of the National Guard Association, 7/1958

“It has been demonstrated repeatedly that the largest professional forces that any nation has been able to possess did not alone insure the survival of that nation. It is less than frank to permit the citizens of a nation to believe that in an all-out struggle for survival they can escape defending themselves because it will be done for them by others. It is far worse to deny them training which will better their individual chances of survival and make them better able to contribute to the successful common defense…The citizens of this nation enjoy bodily comforts to a degree heretofore unknown in the history of the world. They have more rights and enjoy more privileges than the citizens of any other nation. Are we to believe that those same citizens have degenerated to the point where they are willing to abandon their individual right to bear arms to insure their survival?” p. 13779, bottom of 2nd col.)

 

Hershey was director of the Selective Service System for three decades.

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