Betraying the Founding Fathers: How Scalia and the NRA Hacked the 2nd Amendment

The framing, Congress debate and drafting of the Second Amendment had the purpose of avoiding the tyranny of a standing army and ensuring states could maintain their own militias as a check against a national government. It is a military amendment and that is why debate at the First Congress focused on conscientious objector language and whether that could be used by a government to undermine the amendment.The Second Amendment in fact only came about because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution initially allowed the government to arm the militias (and so could leave them to wither) – the Second Amendment took that right to arm the militias back to the states. The President is the Commander in Chief “of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States”. This is the purpose of the Second Amendment.The framers deliberately did not include language to expand this right to individuals for self-defense and hunting. Many state constitutions DO include words to that effect

Source: Betraying the Founding Fathers: How Scalia and the NRA Hacked the 2nd Amendment