Running short on time but here is an article from "The New Yorker" Dated 12/16/1012. Pretty much disagrees with your interpretation.
[LEFT][COLOR=#000000]For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “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.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.
Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX
Before you cite a New Yorker article that pooh-poohs a Congressional subcommittee report, you should probably read the subcommittee report in question.
THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, the REPORT OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, UNITED STATES SENATE, NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 1982.
Unlike the New Yorker piece, the subcommittee report cites case law, in detail, and runs down the history of the right to keep and bear arms, going back to Alfred the Great, who ascended to the English throne in 872 AD.
From the Appendix in the report, which runs down the case law: "The United States Supreme Court has only three times commented upon the meaning of the second amendment to our constitution. The first comment, in Dred Scott, indicated strongly that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right; the Court noted that, were it to hold free blacks to be entitled to equality of citizenship, they would be entitled to keep and carry arms wherever they went. The second, in Miller, indicated that a court cannot take judicial notice that a short-barrelled shotgun is covered by the second amendment--but the Court did not indicate that National Guard status is in any way required for protection by that amendment, and indeed defined "militia" to include all citizens able to bear arms. The third, a footnote in Lewis v. United States, indicated only that "these legislative restrictions on the use of firearms"--a ban on possession by felons--were permissable. But since felons may constitutionally be deprived of many of the rights of citizens, including that of voting, this dicta reveals little. These three comments constitute all significant explanations of the scope of the second amendment advanced by our Supreme Court. The case of Adam v. Williams has been cited as contrary to the principle that the second amendment is an individual right. In fact, that reading of the opinion comes only in Justice Douglas's dissent from the majority ruling of the Court."
The report was done in 1982. At that time, the Supreme Court of the United States had never ruled directly on the question of whether the Second Amendment protected an individual right. There had never been any need to do so.
As the report points out, the Dred Scott decision (
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)) makes it quite clear, in passing, the Court's view of the right to keep and bear arms, at least as of 1857. "It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs,
and to keep and carry arms wherever they went." (Emphasis added.) The 1857 Court quite clearly viewed the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right of citizens, given their statement that granting blacks the rights of citizenship would specifically include giving them the unquestioned right to keep and bear arms.
The Court finally addressed the "individual right" question head-on in
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). The Court's answer to the question is well-known, and was reaffirmed two years later, in
McDonald v. Chicago, 561 US 3025 (2010), which applied Heller to the several States.