Quote Originally Posted by Syme View Post
In the historical context, it is certainly an individual right--it's self-declared purpose is to facilitate the formation of militias, and in the 18th century, militiamen provided their own weapons by basically showing up for service with their personally owned rifle slung over their shoulder. They were definitely not issued weapons by the state. This is evident from militia ordinances of the time, which list firearms and ammunition among the equipment that militiamen must provide for themselves. But no, the text of the amendment itself doesn't explicitly state whether it's collective or individual. It just says "the people"; however, it's also worth noting that this phrase is taken to confer individual rights in all other parts of the Bill of the Rights (First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, etc.). The Bill of Rights is pretty good about distinguishing between "the people" and "the states" (c.f. Tenth Amendment), so to me it doesn't make a lot of a sense to claim that the Second Amendment is actually saying that the states have the right to keep stocks of weaponry in order to equip their militias, which is a claim made by some gun control advocates who want to advance a "collective rights" interpretation.
That's what I wanted to say, but was too lazy, so instead I simply asked a question that made his premise look silly.