No. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is to establish a well-regulated militia. The founders envisioned that gun owners would form a ready body of troops that could be called up by the civil authorities as needed. The militia was intended as an instrument of the state, not a check upon it.
Have you read Heller? The central component of the 2nd amendment is self defense.
No, it’s not the purpose of the 2nd to establish a ‘well-regulated militia’…we had that (several militias actually throughout the colonies, with every colony and every large city or town having one) since before there was a US. The purpose was to give ordinary Americans the right to keep and bear arms so that they would be able to use their own weapons in defense of themselves, their property and the nation, thus negating (in the minds of the founders) the need for a large standing army, which they felt was a tool of oppression.
Have you read Stephen’s dissent to Heller? A 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that contradicts decades of precedent, and in which the minority straight-up rejected the argument of the majority, is hardly the definitive interpretation of the 2nd amendment. The way the winds are blowing, I expect Heller will be overturned in my lifetime.
Which doesn’t address the actual original intent of the 2nd, just how it’s interpreted today or through time.
You make the common fallacy of assuming that the government is a monolithic entity. All the civil wars current and past ought to be sufficient evidence that that is not the case.
Yes, I agree. The current activist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment forced upon us by Heller definitely had nothing to do with original intent. The amendment exists to create the conditions necessary for the establishment of a well-ordered militia that can be called up to serve the needs of the state in place of a standing army. It has nothing to do with personal self-defense. (Other than the fact that in times of crisis a well-ordered militia may provide security for all.) And it definitely is not intended to create a force that can act in opposition to the state.
Might as well ban that pesky automobile while we are at it. Numbers killed in accidents and the impact on the globe are both terrible. Maybe a sensible solution would be limiting speeds to 5 MPH and propulsion via wind or solar. Nowhere in the Constitution have the people been given the right to internal combustion.
We can see in the amendment a reference to militias however it doesn’t clearly state as written that militias are the only reason for the right to bear arms. It doesn’t clearly state any reason, everything else is interpretation. So far the interpreters have been primarily legislators and their interpretations can simply be based on the legislator’s desire to keep his job. SCOTUS so far has not delved deeply into the issue. Since modern hand guns are not much different from the arms the authors of the Constitution were familiar with it’s going to be difficult to find a way for SCOTUS to apply an interpretation to what an arm is relative to handguns in the 2nd amendment. There is much more room for interpretation of the keep, bear, and infringe portions of the amendment, especially the infringe part.
You oppose the activist interpretation of the commerce clause to expand federal power? Or is your goal the expansion of federal power by any means?
I’ll admit I’m pretty much agnostic on the intent behind the Second Amendment. The right itself is pretty explicit and clear. So arguments about why the right exists seems like a moot issue to me.
Somebody forgot to tell you about places like Syria, Crimes and Donbass or Libya. 
The New York Times decided to weigh in on the issue.
[QUOTE=The Editorial Board of The New York Times]
It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.
…
It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.
[/QUOTE]
It will be amusing to hear gun enthusiasts’ reactions to the editorial in [del]America’s newspaper of record[/del] the jihadist rag published in America’s Sodom/Gomorrah
I skipped ahead to the end, but I am not sure why this question keeps coming up with regards to firearms only. The answer can be found by looking at other rights protected by the Constitution.
When discussing arms why are we concerned primarily with 21st century firearms? Because we live in the 21st century and firearms are the tool most uniquely beneficial to self defense. If bows and arrows were more suited, then that’s what we would be talking about.
IOW, your question seems to suggest that there is something wrong because there is no debate about antiquated technology. It would likewise suggest that there is something wrong with the current debate regarding free speech because nobody is concerned that quill pens and papyrus scrolls are so rarely seen and expensive.
If you were walking down the street with a Roman gladius on your belt, that is conduct so sufficiently unusual as to cause the police to think you are up to something. If it turns out that you are going to play the part of Brutus in the park production of Julius Caesar, then off you go.
Of course ammunition and anything else necessary for the exercise of a right cannot be outlawed. Congress could not outlaw ink and say that the press is still free to publish newspapers. You could not say that women have a right to an abortion but make it illegal for a medical professional to assist them.
When there is more than one assailant, six shots might not be enough. Not all of us shoot as straight as dirty harry.
I don’t know how much sense it makes to focus gun control on these relatively rare mass murders.
It’s fairly moot, since it’s how it’s interpreted at any given time that makes the difference. However, it’s not like the thing was written in ancient Egyptian 5000 years ago or that we don’t have the other writings of the folks who drafted it, so it’s fairly easy to look at what they wrote and see what their intent was (which is that they saw the need for a protected personal right to keep and own arms, and saw that in the wider context of defense of the country and ability of the people to avoid oppression and protect themselves).
The thing is, regardless of what the FF thought or didn’t think, none of what they put in place is cast in stone. They were wise enough to get that over time, societies change and that the Constitution and the Amendment system has to be able to change with the times. If today a personal right to keep and bear arms doesn’t make sense anymore, and Americans actually feel that this is the case in sufficient numbers and vote that way, there are mechanisms to amend the Amendment and basically get rid of it, just like we did with the 18th and later the 21st. This argument always seems to bum out the gun banner types, since they seem to realize that they don’t have a majority and probably won’t for some time and they want to do what they want to do by fiat and by re-interpreting the Amendment to say something they want it to say in such a way as to basically completely contradict the original intent (which is why this thing about intent always comes up). Sadly, for them, not only do we have the Federalist Papers and Madison’s correspondence but the current SC has also ruled on this lately, so it’s going to be a while before they can not only re-stack the SC with vertical issue justices who not only believe what the gun banners believe but also would re-ignite the issue to make a new ruling and vacate the current interpretation. That’s going to be a while, even assuming they could get their wish list of justices AND get an excuse to re-evaluate the issue.
If you consider news reporting, of course they want to focus on the mass murders. Mass murders get heavy nation-wide coverage and typically have very sympathetic victims. When one low-level meth dealer (and user) guns down another in an attempt to rob him and/or usurp his territory, coverage is typically local, brief and devoid of sympathetic victims.
That’s what they said about Roe v. Wade and frankly that is harder decision to defend than Heller.
To the extent that you consider the overturning of a state law an activist activity then yes, it was an activist ruling. Your interpretation of the constitution is no more valid than mine and a good sight less valid than SCOTUS. Right now the law (Constitutional law at that) is that the second amendment preserves the right to keep arms for (among other things) self defense in the home.
I suspect we will see that right extended outside the home before we see it restricted inside the home.