One of my pet peeves is the inability of so many gun control advocates to recognize that the militia clause in the Second Amendment is not a limitation on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, but explanatory language. An explanation is not a limitation, and had the founders wanted such a limitation, they'd have referred to the "right of the militia to keep and bear arms," and not "right of the people to keep and bear arms."

Yet "right of the militia to keep and bear arms" is what (under the "collective right" theory) the anti-gun people like to claim that "right of the people to keep and bear arms" actually means. This is absurd.

Googling "right of the militia to keep and bear arms," I got nearly 9,000 hits, but none of them are saying that the Second Amendment says that. Just the opposite.

If only more of the gun control people would admit that the "right of the militia to keep and bear arms" is their interpretation of the Second Amendment, the debate would be clearer.