&gt;<i>The founders envisioned a nation of citizen-defenders equipped and trained to protect their homes, farms, and neighborhoods from incursion by enemies, foreign or domestic. The Constitution states that the right to keep and bear arms is a prerequisite for a well-regulated militia, not the other way around.</i><p>It doesn&#x27;t just state that the right to bear arms is a prerequisite for a well-regulated militia.<p>It also uses the need of a militia as the _justification_ for that right.<p>It says: &quot;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.&quot;<p>This means that the right to bear arms is not an end in itself -- it&#x27;s justified in as much as it&#x27;s a first step to a well-regulated militia.<p>In an era without well-regulated citizen militias (except the National Guard, for which different guard laws apply anyway), there&#x27;s no reason to hold the right to keep arms anymore.<p>So, yes, arms are a prerequisite to such militias -- but (the arms) are only asked to be respected as a right precisely because they are such a prerequisite -- and not for another reason.<p>Which makes the justification for guns and militias reciprocal. Without militias, and no role for them, no reason for the former either.<p>&gt;<i>But the Constitution is what it is, and if we don&#x27;t like it we change it. If the government can get away with ignoring the Second Amendment and deciding it&#x27;s no longer relevant, think of what they might do to the First Amendment. Or the Fourth. Or the Fifth. Or the Eighth. Or the Thirteenth.</i><p>I find keeping the &quot;right to bear arms&quot; in an era for which the justification for doing so given in the Constitution has expired, as the government already violating the spirit of the 2nd Amendment (to favor gun lobbies and such).<p>E.g. that reading of the 2A is a selective reading that upholds the letter while violating the spirit of it, from politically appointed and non impartial judges.