The US Supreme Court undertook an exhausting historical and linguistic investigation in the 2008 landmark case: Heller versus DC. The country's best historians and linguistics experts found that the prefatory phrase of the Second Amendment: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, … " was in no way a limitation on the operative phrase: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". The first clause merely announces a purpose, not every purpose, just a purpose. The second clause mirrors language found in other amendments where the rights are unquestionably individual rights. The court found the strained contention of anti-gun-rights proponents that the Second Amendment conferred only a collective right to arm militias to be nonsense. Those same anti-gun groups now contend the right is limited to the home. Combined with their previous arguments I suppose the Second Amendment would only protect the right to collectively arm indoor militias.
