The Language of the 2nd Amendment

The 2nd Amendment reads: "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." One way in which the NRA constructs its mythical 2nd Amendment is by changing the language of the real one. The NRA's political ads consistently omit the part about the militia being necessary to a state's security. Indeed, the abridged version actually appears on the edifice of the NRA's Washington, DC headquarters.

The NRA's deliberate omission of the militia language speaks volumes, because it is precisely that language that expresses the purpose, and limit, of the right to keep and bear arms. As the United States Supreme Court wrote in its fullest discussion of the Amendment's meaning, the "obvious purpose" of the Amendment was "to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness" of state militia forces. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178 (1939). The Court added: "It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view." Therefore, the necessity of maintaining effective state militias is, by the language itself, the only concern of the Amendment, and the right to keep and bear arms exists only to the extent necessary to meet that concern. There is nothing in the Amendment's language even remotely suggesting a constitutional right to keep and bear arms for hunting, self-protection, target shooting or other individual pursuits unrelated to the operation of state militias.

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