The 2nd Amendment is an 18th Century document written by 18th Century men with 18th Century knowledge, referring to 18th Century technology and applicable to 18th century conditions. Any attempt to directly translate it into 21st Century usage is an inherent distortion of history.

It was written at a time when there were 13 colonies, and the entire population of the country was slightly less than 3 million people. Today, that is roughly the population of Chicago.

It was written in the language of the 18th century. The words “well regulated” in 1789 meant “well trained and ready to defend”. This was a very specific reference to a citizen’s militia in the absence of a standing army.

There is now a standing Federal army, and the National Guard has taken that position on the state level.

The conditions that necessitated the 2nd Amendment in 1789 no longer exist. It is archaic.

That being said I don’t think repeal will ever happen, but the mythology being built up around it is dangerous.

Now we have people arbitrarily forming their own “militias”, which was never the intention. A militia was for the protection of the state, our newly founded government, against the government that claimed authority only six years prior to the adoption of the 2nd Amendment.

The NRA was all for sensible gun control until 1971. That was when a long time member of the NRA, Kenyon Ballew, had his house raided for suspicion of stockpiling illegal weapons. The raid put him in a wheelchair, and started the NRA’s reinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment to mean “protection from our own tyrannical government “.

This is fairly new. Within my lifetime. And the damage it has done to who we are is incalculable.