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I agree with most of what you are saying, but when you mention that Mason and Madison were considering muskets at the time, while that is technically true, that was not their intent. You also mentioned that "it is unlikely that if the nation is attacked we would need to muster local forces using personal firearms." You need to remember that they had recently fought a war against their own government, which is where their minds were. The goal of this particular amendment was not for the citizens to take up arms to protect us against an invading enemy; it was to allow the citizens to take up arms against our own government, were they to become tyrannical again. The only way to do that would be to have and use the same weapons as the standing military has and uses. At the time the founders wrote the bill of rights, the standing militias used the same muskets that the civilian populace used. In that context, they meant for the populace to have the same weapons as the government forces. Back in the 1780s, that was the case. It is already not the case today, as many classes of arms have been either directly banned, or effectively banned due to regulations impossible to meet, from civilians since 1934.

From: Is the president on target with his executive order?

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