The second amendment:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to kTheTheeep afringed.
About this, notice two things: context and contingency.
1) Context: the country envisioned in the Constitution does not have a standing army. The "militia" referenced in the first clause is a version of our National Guard, a part-time military whose weapons are meant to protect the US from its enemies in war.
2) Contingency: this is the only time in any of the founding documents of the US that a "right" is predicated upon a prior condition. "A well regulated militia being necessary...the right...shall not be infringed." This means that arms are a "right" only insofar as a militia is necessary. This contingency suggests that the right is not absolute. Guns, by their nature, ought to be regulated. This argument can be made on other grounds, and I will do it. But the constitutional defense against that argument seems a little short on rational justification. For that reason, the facts on the ground, facts about gun violence rates that stagger the rest of the world, trump preferences and the inconveniences gun legislation occasions.
