Just a few points:

1) The Constitution was NOT enacted to limit the power of the federal government. On the contrary, it was enacted to STRENGTHEN that power. It replaced the much weaker Articles of Confederation, and so represents an increase, not a limitation, of federal power. The fact that it does include provisions limiting government action (including the Bill of Rights) means only that the intent was not to increase it in an unlimited fashion; it was still, by intent and by effect, a strengthening and not a limitation.

2) There is nothing in the Constitution that would render a national gun registry unconstitutional. Indeed, it has already been established by court case that many restrictions on gun ownership do not violate the Second Amendment ban on infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." (In saying that, I'm not necessarily defending the idea of a national gun registry. Many things might be done that are not unconstitutional but are nevertheless not good ideas. I offer no opinion one way or the other as to whether this would be one of them; just the same, unconstitutional it is not.)

3) The Second Amendment, although it remains the law of the land, is in several respects an anachronism, and the purpose for which it exists has been rendered null and void. That purpose is stated up front: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . ." Some thought as to what this means might be appropriate here.

Until the Civil War, the militia was the way in which the United States formed its national defense. The idea was that the federal government would maintain only a small cadre of officers and such regular troops as might be necessary to deal with insurgencies or angry Indians, and that when serious war threatened it would call up and federalize the militia for the purpose.

The militia was maintained by each state as a force for the state's own defense in times of local emergency. It was not a regular army, but consisted of volunteer forces trained at the state's expense according to a regimen prescribed by Congress. Often the members of the militia owned and maintained their own weapons, but that was not always the case nor absolutely required; Congress is empowered to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress," so the provision is there allowing Congress to provide arms for the militia at government expense.

This method of national defense was preferred over a regular army for two reasons. First, it was believed that a standing army in peacetime was itself a threat to liberty, the instrument by which a government imposed tyranny. Second, having the bulk of military forces under the administration of the individual states was believed to provide the states with a way of resisting federal power should the federal government attempt to impose a regime that the states considered oppressive. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" was in service to maintaining this type of national defense force. It did not mean the right of any individual to OWN firearms, but rather the right of members of the militia to "keep and bear" arms -- to maintain them, and to have ready access to them for military purposes. The Second Amendment was enacted in defense of a state right versus the federal government, not in defense of an individual right against either the state or federal government. In theory, its provisions could have been met by a state that kept convenient central depositories of weapons and did not allow private ownership of firearms at all, although I don't believe any state ever actually did this. Some types of arms, such as artillery, were of course entirely state-owned, but small arms usually were not, and certainly no ban on gun ownership was ever enacted. (However, prior to the 14th amendment the Second Amendment actually did not apply to state governments, nor did any other part of the Bill of Rights.)

The Second Amendment has nothing to do with a right to protect one's own home from burglars, or to own weapons for hunting or target practice. Its intent and scope are entirely military. If we still maintained a militia system of national defense, it would guarantee the right to "keep and bear" (but not necessarily to own) modern military assault-rifles, hand grenades, body armor, and whatever else our troops use; it would have nothing to say about hunting rifles, handguns, or any other type of arm except military weapons. Actually, scratch that "if" above -- the amendment is still on the books, so it DOES guarantee the right to keep and bear military arms even though we don't use a militia system any more, and so its purpose is null and void.

The reason we don't use a militia today and have turned to a professional army instead, the very thing the founders feared and enacted the Second Amendment to work against, is because it worked exactly as intended in 1861. A number of states believed that the federal government was becoming oppressive, and called up their militia forces to oppose it. The result was a horrible bloodletting, and so the right of the states to maintain their own military forces disappeared thereafter. So the Second Amendment is a provision of the Constitution that now hangs there in limbo, its purpose gone, its intent vanished, accomplishing nothing except to give certain political organizations a spurious reason to exist.

It is spurious. There has never been, so far as I can find, a single law regulating or restricting gun ownership struck down by the Supreme Court on the basis of the Second Amendment. Indeed, I think it quite arguable that a national ban on private ownership of all guns might pass court scrutiny, so long as access to weapons for military purposes by citizens is maintained in some fashion. The reason such a ban has not been enacted is not because it would be unconstitutional but simply because there is no political consensus in favor of it.

This really has little to do with the OP and I agree that Bloomberg was acting illegally and foolishly. However, in the course of discussion a number of (very common) misstatements were made and I felt they should be corrected.

Although it is an argument for another thread, suffice it to say that your interpretation of the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the right of the militia to bear arms is fatally flawed.

Pray, can you demonstrate any other place in the Constitution or Bill of Rights where the phrase "The People" is constructed to mean anything but an individual right of all people?

It certainly isn't a collective right in the First Amendment, nor in the Fourth. It seems to be the argument that the phrase means one thing in the First Amendment, then something completely different in the Second Amendment, and then reverts back to the original meaning in the Fourth and subsequent amendments is plainly defective.

Matt

When the constitution was being written the framers never dreamed of email or the internet. You Sir are a enemy of freedom. The Constitution will be defended by any means necessary.
Why is it that liberals always claim to before civil rights but time and time again back RACIST gun control laws. If you would do your research it you would find the KKK backed gun control to keep blacks as slaves.

Never mind.

The Supreme Court just resolved this in totality. Suffice it to say my interpretation was exactly correct - the Second Amendment secures an individual right unconnected to any militia service.

Matt

Well this is just one battle won next stop Chicago's Fascist gun laws

And / or New York City's.

Bloomberg should love that.....

Bloomberg and his liberal gun grabbing heroes are foaming at the mouth right now.