Bill D.,

Bless your well-educated soul but, friend, I never asked you to AGREE with the 2nd Amendment. I pointed out that its meaning is clear. Your own example, "A well-groomed leader being necessary for the enchantment of the populace, the right of the people to own hair-dryers shall not be infringed" makes this clear. If well-groomed leaders became obsolete, what would happen to the right to own hair-dryers. Nothing, of course. The definition of "well-groomed leader" is irrelevant. You could define them as any way you please and the right to hair-dryers would still remain intact. Plug in any ridiculous definition you wish and it changes the force of the independent clause not a whit. In a sentence of this form, the validity of the independent clause ("the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed") does not depend on the validity of the dependent clause ("A well-regulated militia...")

Again, one could argue that the amendment should be repealed, just as Prohibition was repealed. But it hasn't been.

TIA,

You make a good argument that the 2nd Amendment should have been worded differently. But it wasn't.

Bobert,

I think you'll find that there is no debate about what the word "militia" means in the context of the 2nd Amendment. It doesn't mean either "our armed forces" nor "survivalist groups". Here's the definition from Webster's dictionary (1828):

MILI'TIA, n. [L. from miles, a soldier; Gr. war, to fight, combat, contention. The primary sense of fighting is to strive, struggle, drive, or to strike, to beat, Eng. moil, L. molior; Heb. to labor or toil.] The body of soldiers in a state enrolled for discipline, but not engaged in actual service except in emergencies; as distinguished from regular troops, whose sole occupation is war or military service. The militia of a country are the able bodied men organized into companies, regiments and brigades,with officers of all grades, and required by law to attend military exercises on certain days only, but at other times left to pursue their usual occupations.

As I pointed out, that concept is, like wagon-trains and scroll-copying monastaries, basically obsolete*. However, as I also pointed out, the right to keep and bear arms is retained. The amendment doesn't say, "If and only if there is a militia, the right to keep and bear arms shall be retained". Again, you could argue that it SHOULD have said that. But it doesn't.
   
Kent

* Theoretically, the militia could still be called up, just as theoretically we could start crossing the Plains in wagon trains but, in practical terms, the militia is a dead institution, replaced by the National Guard, the various police forces, and the Reserves.