“A well regulated Militia,” “A well regulated Militia,” “being necessary” “to the security of a free State” “comma —” “the right of the people” “to keep and” “bear arms” “shall not be infringed.” “shall not be infringed.” “What exactly does that mean?” So it’s only 27 words long, but it is probably the most cryptic part of the United States Constitution. It’s hard to know what the connection is between the two phrases in the Second Amendment. One of them seems to announce a collective right and the second an individual one — and knowing how they are connected is the key to understanding the Second Amendment. If you read that first clause by itself, a well-regulated militia is one that the government has taken pains to control. “American riflemen are the best riflemen in the world because the training they get is the best in the world.” You would think the Second Amendment protects a collective right to keep and bear arms, which is how it was understood for a long, long time in the history of the United States. The second clause cuts in a different direction. If you read this by itself, it would seem to say you have a personal right to keep and bear arms. However, when the Constitution speaks of the right of the people, it sometimes speaks in a more collective sense rather than individual. Let me discuss for a second “to keep and bear arms.” Most scholars agree that to keep arms is something you do as an individual, but to bear arms has more of a military flavor. What precisely the framers meant by arms is the subject of a lot of dispute. So the contemporary, modern interpretation of the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms is only 10 years old. In that case, the Supreme Court struck down what was probably the toughest gun control law in the nation, in Washington, D.C. “We hold that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to have and use arms for self-defense in the home.” But it tells us almost nothing aside from “in the home for self-defense.” And since then, the Supreme Court has ducked case after case after case that could refine and elaborate the scope of the Second Amendment to tell us, for instance, is there a right to bear arms in public? Are concealed carry laws O.K.? It’s told us almost nothing about Second Amendment rights.