Personally, I think the sum total of the situation, including what guns can do today vs in 1790, suggests the courts have taken far too expansive a view of the guarantee of broad gun ownership by private citizens.

But if you look at the actual, literal text, including how the sentence is punctuated, it could be taken to mean that well regulated militias are a necessity to a free state, and individual citizen’s right to bear arms is a necessity to the existence of those militias. Meaning the right itself is conferred upon private citizens who can then comprise a militia, rather than conferred upon the militias themselves.

And I am one who normally takes the other side of that argument.
[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 03/24/2021 10:26AM]