It restricts the ability of the federal government to restrict arms.
In this it's like the first (restricts Congress' limitations on expression, religion, etc.).
And the third--restricting the ability of the government to billet troops in private residences.
And the fourth--restricting the ability of the government to search and seize possessions and people.
And the fifth--restricting the abiility of the government to try and punish citizens without due process.
And the sixth--prohibiting unlimited incarceration without trial, change of venue to find a "suitable" jury.
And the seventh--prohibiting the government from trying and sentencing a man without a jury, without his permission.
And the eighth--prohibiting the government from cruel and unusual punishment, but more importantly from unilaterally setting bail or fines in a way that is inappropriately punitive.
And the 9th--prohibiting the government from saying any right that's not formally granted is automatically subject to any restriction the government deems appropriate.
And the 10th--prohibiting the federal government from saying that any right or privilege not explicitly granted to the states is automatically at the federal government's discretion.
What you want is for rights to be not just allowed but their exercise enforced. You have a right to speak, so the government must make sure that you have everything necessary to make sure you're heard ... by everybody? There's a right to free use of a press, but does that mean the government or newspaper must provide you with a press, free of change?
Sudden freedom of religion becomes compulsion to worship. And do you really want to make sure that the government causes you to be in a position of needing to have a speedy trial by jury for a capital crime? Really?
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I rather like how wiki quotes the House version of the 2nd amendment:
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
It encodes both the understanding of the word "militia" at the time. And shows the concern that was had for making sure the Bill of Rights was a protection against usurpation of rights and not a dispensation of rights. The bits left out were assumed. Dropping them changed nothing.
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As for the text of the 2nd amendment, the right protected belongs to the subject of the sentence, "the people." The sentence is passive, and the demoted subject of that sentence is presumably "the federal government": "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed (the the federal government). "Underlyingly" the sentence is something like "the federal government shall not infringe the right of the people to bear arms." Passivization done because the underlying subject is known and there's no reason to dwell on it or you don't want to mention it; or to emphasize the object by making it the subject of the sense; or, at times, to make sure other grammatical relations in the sentence line up better.
"Militia" is not the subject of the main clause; it's the subject of a subordinate clause, it's the subject of "being". I rather liked the House version because it made clear the grammatical reasoning for the passive and cleared up some problems in coreference that has bedeviled "eisegetes" for years. (Exegesis is the deriving of underlying meaning from close reading of a text; eisegesis would be the reverse, the reading of meaning into a text that it does not properly have.)
= new reply since forum marked as read
