This paper examines the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to establish that its purpose was not to allow ordinary citizens the “right to keep and bear arms”.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It is this Amendment that proponents of private gun ownership in the United States rely on to justify individual ownership of guns and arms. Yet, clearly the Second Amendment was never intended to be a gun license for the entire American population.

Gun-lovers throughout the United States have always focused their side of the debate on the final phrase of the Second Amendment. They completely ignore the first

part of the Amendment which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . .” A straightforward reading of the entire Second Amendment makes it clear that the right to keep and bear arms was intended to apply only to members of state-run, citizen militias.

Constitution. Available at: .

Unbeknownst to the general public, this is not even an unsettled area of the law. In fact, there have been no gun control laws that have been declared unconstitutional by courts because they violated an individual’s rights to bear arms (Meyer, para.2).

Moreover, the Courts of the United States have consistently determined that the Second Amendment does not grant any comprehensive right to own a gun, nor does it prevent gun control. The U.S. Supreme Court has heard cases involving this issue and has interpreted the Second Amendment on several occasions –- and has determined that the individual’s right to “keep and bear arms” is not a right granted by the constitution.

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