However anyone wishes to "interpret" the Second Amendment to the Constitution, it cannot be denied that the Founding Fathers intended the people to be armed and well regulated for instant use in the defense of the country from invasion, insurrection, and to enforce the laws of the Union. Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16, make that quite clear.
The lack of any grant of power to the Congress to disarm the people - especially in the light of the need for the grant of power to provide for arming the people - is all the proof necessary to show there is no need to prohibit the Congress from infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
The inconsistencies between the several state constitution's protections of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the lack of that protection in some of the state's constitutions, prompted the need for the universal protection of the right in the Constitution for the United States, ergo, the Second Amendment. Unarmed people are useless to the security of themselves; their family; state; and in this land, the union of those states.
The Second Amendment does not need the Fourteenth Amendment for it to be applicable to the several states. This was also understood by the states prior to the Fourteenth Amendment. To wit:
"It is contended, that this article of the code, is in violation of the constitution of the United States, and of this state. The clause in the constitution of the United States, that it is said to be in violation of, is the 2d article of the amendments: "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." O. & W. Dig. 7. The clause in the constitution of this state, which it is said to violate, is the 13th section of the bill of rights: "Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms, in the lawful defense of himself or the state." O. & W. Dig. 14.
The object of the clause first cited, has reference to the perpetuation of free government, and is based on the idea, that the people cannot be effectually oppressed and enslaved, who are not first disarmed. The clause cited in our bill of rights, has the same broad object in relation to the government, and in addition thereto, secures a personal right to the citizen. The right of a citizen to bear arms, in the lawful defense of himself or the state, is absolute. He does not derive it from the state government, but directly from the sovereign convention of the people that framed the state government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and "is excepted out of the general powers of government." A law cannot be passed (p.402)to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power." - Texas Supreme Court Decision, Cockrum vs State of Texas, ---- 1859
Woody
"We the People are the government of this land. We decide who writes our laws, we decide who leads us, and we decide who will judge us; for as long as We the People have the guns to keep it that way." B.E.Wood