C. “A Well Regulated Militia, being Necessary to the Security of a Free State”

A feature of the Second Amendment that distinguishes it from the other rights that the Bill of Rights secures is its prefatory subordinate clause, declaring: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, . . . .” Advocates of the collective-right and quasi-collective-right interpretations rely on this declaration, particularly its reference to a well-regulated militia. On their interpretation, the “people” to which the Second Amendment refers is only the “people” in a collective, organized capacity as the state governments, or a small subset of the “people” actively organized by those governments into military bodies. “People” becomes interchangeable with the “State” or its “organized militia.”

This argument misunderstands the proper role of such prefatory declarations in interpreting the operative language of a provision. A preface can illuminate operative language but is ultimately subordinate to it and cannot restrict it.

Wholly apart from this interpretive principle, this argument also rests on an incomplete understanding of the preface’s language. Although the Amendment’s prefatory clause, standing alone, might suggest a collective or possibly quasi-collective right to a modern reader, when its words are read as they were understood at the Founding, the preface is fully consistent with the individual right that the Amendment’s operative language sets out. The “Militia” as understood at the Founding was not a select group such as the National Guard of today. It consisted of all able-bodied male citizens. The Second Amendment’s preface identifies as a justification for the individual right that a necessary condition for an effective citizen militia, and for the “free State” that it helps to secure, is a citizenry that is privately armed and able to use its private arms.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !