The Second Amendment

As passed by the Congress:

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.

As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:

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.

I marvel at how people think they can construe this amendment, in either version, to believe that it authorizes individuals to have and use guns to protect themselves against the tyranny of their own government, the very government that the constitution was in the process of creating.

I have deliberately inserted the word "use" because people have cited their need to be armed against the tyranny of the Obama administration, as if we are living in the dystopia that the founders feared. Really? Are you quite sure of that? Of course, the most reasonable of them would argue, we're not going to start an armed rebellion. We're "just sayin'."

One could ostensibly make a case that the second version, in which the word "state" is not capitalized, refers to the "free state" of the individual citizens, some sort of natural condition. That interpretation is impossible with the original version passed by Congress, which refers to the security of a free State (Nation). And the capitalized Militia in that original version also makes it clear the reference was to an armed citizenry defending the new nation.

Consider the second version. To assume that the founders were granting citizens the right to take up arms against the very government they were creating, without once using the word "tyranny" and without certainly without defining it, is to assume they were idiots. Apparently all that is needed, using this interpretation, is a strong sense of outrage, and a gun, and you can be another defender of liberty like Timothy McVeigh.

It is much more logical, considering the military weakness of the new nation relative to the European powers,  that the founders were more concerned with a citizen Militia to defend the country they were creating than they they were with establishing a right for individuals to overthrow its government from within.

Consider the immensity of our tyrannical government's firepower nowadays. It becomes clear that the 2nd amendment, interpreted thusly, must also grant individuals the right to much more sophisticated military weaponry than a mere AR-47, that is if the well-regulated foes of tyranny are to have any chance at all. I mean, surely the constitution guarantees a fair fight.

The best solution would be to void the 2nd amendment altogether because it would appear to have not been properly ratified. If the version passed by Congress is not the same as that ratified by the states, then the constitutional requirement for amending the constitution would appear to have not been met.