Founding Fathers' Individual/Collective 2A views?

The above link is an excellent, well-documented resource.

Another angle you could try is the following;

Groups do not have "rights."

If someone tries to tell you that the 2A is a "collective" right, call them out on it; ask them exactly what a "collective right" is, and what some other examples of "collective rights" are.

While they are busy stuttering and stumbling, unable to respond, since there is of course no such thing as a "collective right," you just smile at them like this:

If the Second Amendment applies only to the military, why would all the other Amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights all be about individual rights?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html

The Federalist Papers would be a good source to judge the intentions and background motivatons of the Founding Fathers. I doubt if you could find any evidence that any of them felt that guns were only to be used by the military.

http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/federalist/

Well, you already have plenty of ammo , as listed above, to decimate any opposition with superior and accurate fire (puns intended)

Seriously, only leftists/statists/authoritarians could believe the drivel emerging from the cesspools of the gun grabbers.

Here are two opposing views on Thomas Jefferson's view on the matter
pro
and

con

Another tactic used by the anti-gunners is to say that the 2nd Amendment speaks to protecting the right of the states to arm their National Guard (its the militia, they say).

Response:

If this is the case, why do many state constitutions ratified at nearly the same time have nearly the exact same language? Why would a state guarantee itself the ability to arm itself?;

Individuals have rights, governments have powers. For the FF's to have been so inconsistent in their use of language, and to further put a "right of the states" smack in the middle of a bunch of individual liberties is absurd;

The NG is a creation of the 20th century and not the 18th; and

The NG can be federalized, and therefore isn't really the states' "militia" but a 2ndary reserve for the federal government.
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A good answer to the charge that the 2nd is a "collective" right and that individuals cannot enforce any rights under it is: "I don't think so. The US Supreme Court decided in 1939 to hear a case involving a guy named Miller, who based his defense on his individual 2nd Amendment rights. If there was no individual right, then why did the Court decide the case on its merits, and not just throw it out on the basis that he "failed to assert a claim?"

But isn't there a passage in the US Constitution that prohibits states from forming their own armed groups?

Article I, Section 10, clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Keeping Troops, is keeping a standing army. It has nothing to do with the general militia.

MRE
Just beware of bogus quotes. This one is belived and pretty much accepted as bogus

"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny in government." --Thomas Jefferson

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isn't there a passage in the US Constitution that prohibits states from forming their own armed group

Click to expand...

They're not supposed to keep standing armies, hence the reliance on the militia. In fact the founders weren't too fond of the federal government keeping a professional army either. Looking at European history they saw the military as a major threat to freedom, as was a national church. They preferred to rely on part time citizen soldiers - i.e. the militia.