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mothballedtoday at 12:45 AM1 replyview on HN

We weren't, if we were this conversation couldn't get here. If we were you couldn't play the militia fuck fuck game, since the right to keep and bear arms is ascribed to the people and not the militia.

The answer is easy in the plain-text case, whether you are associated with the militia is moot, as the plain text unambiguously says the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

It's only in the non plaintext case can you start handwaving that right is restricted to militia yada yada.


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archagontoday at 12:57 AM

From Wikipedia:

> Until the late 20th century, there was little scholarly commentary of the Second Amendment. In the latter half of the 20th century, there was considerable debate over whether the Second Amendment protected an individual right or a collective right. The debate centered on whether the prefatory clause ("A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State") declared the amendment's only purpose or merely announced a purpose to introduce the operative clause ("the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"). Scholars advanced three competing theoretical models for how the prefatory clause should be interpreted...

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