That has been discussed quite thoroughly here. Frank Ettin, one of our legal experts, has explained that while a lay person thinks X - it is the Supreme Court that interprets it. I am not a lawyer and to get into those weeds. Just to give you a flavor, the anti gun folks say the militia clause implies 'not infringer' refers to the rights of the state to have an armed militia - not individual ownership of guns. Sigh - tons of discussion of that. You might search on it and Frank's postings in Legal.
We announce the phrase as a magic spell but it doesn't work that way in actuality, even if we would like it to be so.
I'm not trying to claim
anything is a "magic spell" (especially in today's environment) , and with all due respect to Frank Ettin, who I'm sure is a fine legal intellect despite his rather procustean attitude toward court interpretation (I'm NOT claiming he is wrong), but IMHO the definitions of words can be found in dictionaries everywhere. Mr. Ettin may ream me over Hell's Fires but, I seem to recall that a principle in jurisprudence is to use modern definitions for words, not "what the great unwashed masses think."
For the record, my dictionary is the
OXFORD AMERICAN DICTIONARY, a huge tome that could double as a weapon, and this defines the word INFRINGED thus:
1.) To intrude into.
2.) To diminish.
Thus, without resorting to legal precedent, but applying them only as my logic would guide me;
"Shall not be infringed." "Shall" is an imperative, not a suggestion or request. Therefore, arguing via metaphor, if there is, say, a room in a house one cannot
intrude into, then one cannot enter into it or effect any changes in said room .... atleast not without violating the term "intrude." Likewise, if something can not be
diminished, then by definition it
must remain whole.
Thus, IMHO, there are numerous gun laws that violate this proscription.
Now, yes, okay, I'm not a court. What I say is not the law and may not be what the court said or agree with. I only claim to have a very modest, humble, B.A. in English, and a belief that Rush Limbaugh was right when he claimed "words mean things."
The existence of the "militia clause, " or "preferatory clause," does not create a collective right of a state to have an armed militia. Even scholars might believe it but it simply is not true. "The right
of the people" clearly connects the right to its owners: the people.
Mr. Ettin may correct me if I'm wrong but it's my belief, in law, a word or phrase that is given a definition retains the same definition everywhere in the document. Thus if "the right of the people" in the second amendment means only a government militia, then said militia are the only ones who have any of the rights mentioned elsewhere in the Bill of Rights.
Given the lengths the founders went to explain their efforts in both
THE FEDERALIST PAPERS and THE ANTIFEDERALIST PAPERS I don't feel I have commited a heinous crime by expressing my own opinion here. I think my reasoning would roughly parallel theirs atleast in the whole if not specific.
Oh. P. S.: None of the above is to be construed as legal advice.
(I use that term pretty loosely 
