If yesterday's anniversary made you happy, then happy anniversary. It was a year since 19 young children and two teachers were murdered in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Let's cut to the chase: the "Second Amendment" reads "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." Do you see the word "gun?" No? That's because it's not there. You think it's there, like an optical illusion, because the word "Arms" is there, and you think "Arms" means "guns." That's what you tell yourself, if you don't read the "Amendment," and if you don't know the history, and from where the concept of "militias" comes.
Please read the "Amendment" again, and recognize that this is about militias. "Keep[ing] and bear[ing] Arms" is simply the mechanism of operationalizing militias. You see that now, right? So, once you understand that, what do you know about the late 18th C early American concept and intention of militias? If you don't know much, then read Federalist Paper #29. That will tell you everything you need to know. The Paper is far longer than the one sentence "Amendment," so the "Amendment" should be taken as a concise way of communicating the Paper.
There are two stated and described purposes of militias, at least in 1789, when the "Amendment" was proposed, and 1791, when it was adopted by the early Congress. The purposes are to provide protection for the states against possible over-reach and domination by the federal government, and to provide to the federal government extra paramilitary resources if the Union was invaded from outside. Either purpose of a militia requires that the militia be armed as its enemies -- the federal government, or outside invaders -- are armed. In the late 18th C, that mostly meant muskets. (Federalist Paper #29 also specifies that "Arms" are to be provided by the federal government.) Muskets won't cut it today. Now, we need bazookas, flame-throwers, tanks, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, submarines, surface-to-air missiles, and nuclear weapons. And when I say "we," I mean you and I. (Well, not I. I'm too old. According to Federalist Paper #29, no part of which was contradicted or disqualified by the "Second Amendment," people who can be included in militias have to be Caucasian, male, and 17-45.) We are the available conscripts for militias. We need to be properly armed, by the federal government, and trained, also by the federal government, with officers designated by the states. It's the states, after all, that have to decide if the militia is going to join the federal government or go to war against it.
The obvious problem with the "Second Amendment" is that every weapon/"Arm" we would need is illegal for civilian possession. The federal government won't give you one, or train you in its use, or allow you to have one if you could buy it yourself. We haven't formally repealed the "Second Amendment," but it no longer has its intended operational meaning, and it no longer really exists.
What we have instead is cocky, adult-aged children running around with AR-15s, shooting up schools, banks, houses of worship, parties and other celebratory gatherings, peaceful protesters, or just masses of people they want to assassinate, because they're bored. Yesterday was the first anniversary of just one of very many of those episodes.
By the way, another part of Federalist Paper #29, which was written by Alexander Hamilton, was a careful reassurance that militiamen were residents of the localities. They were everyone else's family, neighbor, co-worker, and they were very well known to everyone else in the locality. They were eminently trustworthy to everyone else in town. Today, with all the movement among people, that's a lot less true. Even if we had a "Second Amendment" today, and even if it was functional, we could no longer simply trust that anyone "Arm[ed]" was stable, honorable, and trustworthy. We would have to investigate them carefully, and they would have to register their "Arms."
I've read mixed things about the early militias. Some say they were decisive in helping the Colonies win the Revolutionary War, and others say they were unreliable, and often more trouble than help. (George Washington said that.) But we don't have militias like that any more. Each of us will not be properly "Arm[ed]" by the federal government, as would be required by the "Second Amendment," and we won't be trained for combat, and included in militias.
If you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, you can also believe in the "Second Amendment."
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