The wrong argument?
Perhaps I just read it differently, but I think this discussion got started off on the wrong track.
We are discussing rolleyes what a militia is, if militias are a good thing, where has our militia gone?, and all the while, not (IMHO) not reading the 2nd Amendment properly. Perhaps its just a sign of the way we use language today, as opposed to the way they used it when they wrote it?
The opening clause, is a preface (preparatory?) clause. It isn't intended to say anything more than explain why the second clause exists. To set the stage, so to speak.
Today, it might be written "Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state....."
By limiting the govt's legal ability to restrict arms ownership of the people ("shall not be infringed"), the 2nd assures that we will have the equipment (arms) to supply a militia, without having to beg them from anyone else, should we feel it necessary to form militia, for the purpose of resisting tyranny, foreign agression, or any other valid reason.
Now, I will admit that in the past century, that pesky "infringement" part has been stepped on, worked around, and/or just openly ignored more than at any other time in our nation's history, but we have not given up, and the fight is far from lost.
Recent court decisions, basically re-affirming what our founders knew and generations of Americans have believed shows us that we have not been working for a lost cause, despite what those on the other side have worked so hard through the media to make the nation believe.
Perhaps I just read it differently, but I think this discussion got started off on the wrong track.
We are discussing rolleyes what a militia is, if militias are a good thing, where has our militia gone?, and all the while, not (IMHO) not reading the 2nd Amendment properly. Perhaps its just a sign of the way we use language today, as opposed to the way they used it when they wrote it?
The opening clause, is a preface (preparatory?) clause. It isn't intended to say anything more than explain why the second clause exists. To set the stage, so to speak.
Today, it might be written "Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state....."
By limiting the govt's legal ability to restrict arms ownership of the people ("shall not be infringed"), the 2nd assures that we will have the equipment (arms) to supply a militia, without having to beg them from anyone else, should we feel it necessary to form militia, for the purpose of resisting tyranny, foreign agression, or any other valid reason.
Now, I will admit that in the past century, that pesky "infringement" part has been stepped on, worked around, and/or just openly ignored more than at any other time in our nation's history, but we have not given up, and the fight is far from lost.
Recent court decisions, basically re-affirming what our founders knew and generations of Americans have believed shows us that we have not been working for a lost cause, despite what those on the other side have worked so hard through the media to make the nation believe.