adopted gave the Congress power “to provide for calling

adopted gave the Congress power “to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions” and “to provide for organizing, arming, and discipling” the militia. This reflected the sentiment of the time that a primarily civilian force could adequately protect the country and its laws. The Second Amendment to the Constitution, the source of the NRA’s putative “right,” was added to facilitate this approach by providing that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear Anns shall not be infringed.”

The connection between keeping and bearing arms and maintaining a civilian militia is therefore clear on the amendment’s face. No “right” is guaranteed beyond this context. Nonetheless, the NRA would have us believe that the last clause of the Second Amendment should be read as standing alone and unmodified. They say it in bold brass letters next to tiie entrance of their national headquarters, and they say it bold as brass to anyone willing to listen, particularly elected officials who should know better. They say it even though their interpretation is inconsistent with the amendment’s historical underpinning, inconsistent with good grammatical construction, and, most important, inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s 1939 opinion in United State V. Miller.

In Miller the Court formally shrivelled the Second Amendment to an anachronism by announcing that unless the possession or use of a firearm “has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.” Elaborating, the Court stated that the “obvious purpose” of the amendment was “to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness” of state militias and that it “must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.” In Bur