The 2nd Amendment protects the right of the People to maintain a Militia, not gun ownership

Thanks to my challenger for accepting the Con stance in this debate. I had hoped, had key word here, to present a logical and coherent argument for my Pro stance on the statement "The 2nd Amendment protects the right of the people to maintain a militia, not gun ownership" BUT sadly have made a fool of myself by assuming, and wasted a lot of time. What I assumed was that certain military grade weapons (which can be seen as extreme and unreasonable) were completely banned from being owned privately by American citizens such as fighter jets(F16, A10, etc), tanks, attack helicopters, as well as the severely destructive missiles and munitions they utilize. As it turns out there are no such laws, though many require extensive background checks, permits, and tend to be prohibitively expensive, so are not commonly owned. I doubt I am alone in this inaccurate assumption. I believe (perhaps also an assumption, haha) that armed citizens of the public, almost without regard to the number of armed citizens, could not forcefully defend this nation from external attack by a foreign power's professional military force (say Russia, or China) nor could they overthrow the Federal government's police and military forcibly if it was deemed necessary. In both cases I see the US National Guard and/or active US Army/Navy/Marine Corp/Air Force (the professional, paid, government affiliated) necessary for success. It's just a matter of financial resources. Citizens *can* own machines of war, but when each one costs millions of dollars to own and arm let alone the millions/billions it costs to organize and coordinate their use, a citizen militia simply can't compete with the professional military forces of the major powers in the world. This is a vastly different situation than when the best weapons for war also happened to be what a normal person would own to hunt (excluding navy ships and cannon) and for personal protection. At the time of the American Revolution the number of musket-armed citizens could be the deciding factor in the success of a battle and war. Now, even if AR-15-armed citizens outnumbered a professional military force by 1000 to 1, I'd still bet on the military force equipped with an air force, navy, and armored weaponry to win. Thus I see the Amendment as antiquated because a militia, even a well-regulated one, cannot succeed in maintaining the security of the free state given the advancement in weaponry and warfare technology and tactics. The writers of the Constitution could not have foreseen the development of airplanes let alone the atomic bomb. Aside aside, Here is how my argument would have read (still in revision) if my assumption were true. I put a lot of effort into this so I'm publishing it even though its premise is inherently flawed: " I would like to start by saying I am not anti-gun or firearm. I do not think that guns should be outlawed. My reason for initiating this debate is not to argue guns being bad or good, whether they should be outlawed or sold over the counter at gas stations, or whether its guns that kill people or people that kill people. It is to debate the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, in which case I would argue it is explicitly regarding militias and their role in protecting the nation. My opponent in this debate seems to ally with the anti-gun control side of the raging gun control debate in this country, the side which so often points to the 2nd Amendment as guaranteeing the right to own guns by citizens of this country, seeming to explicitly prohibit the creation of any law or regulation that would limit the ability of an American citizen to acquire, keep, and bear firearms. Such a law(s) would be considered unconstitutional , violating the 2nd Amendment. I will prove that the 2nd Amendment is being violated already, and that most American citizens would agree some of the violations are quite reasonable and even necessary. This will establish that the 2nd Amendment can legally be violated quite voluntarily when consensus exists and thus *does not* protect gun ownership since the 2nd Amendment can be circumvented when a consensus that it should be exists. Please review the language of the 2nd Amendment: 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. Perhaps the most glaring, though ignored or not yet recognized, flaw with the argument that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual American citizen's right to privately own guns (or firearms) is that it cannot serve its function in the contemporary era. I say that for this crucial reason: There are "Arms" (armaments) that *are* necessary to the "security of a free state" that have been banned from individual ownership and use by American citizens. These are things like nuclear warheads, fighter jets like F-22s and F-16s and the missiles and bombs they can carry, heavy artillery, attack helicopters such as Apaches and Comanches (to name a few used by the US military) These things most definitely qualify as armaments, arms, without which we as a free state would lack security Even with a loose interpretation of the Amendment (that most often associated with anti-gun control views), which seems to view the right to a militia (deemed necessary to the security of a free state by the creators of the Constitution) and the right to keep and bear arms as almost mutually exclusive entities, shouldn't these arms that I've named above be legal and accessible to all who would choose to buy them? I would say yes, with such a loose interpretation. I would even say yes, if the security of our free state were within the obligations and capabilities of a voluntary and unpaid citizenry-based militia system as was the concept of a well-regulated militia at the time of its writing and our recent independence from Britain . Yet, very few would think it a good idea or reasonable situation. (for an individual to own armaments If we affirm that the Constitution is the foundation of all law in this country and should be interpreted and implemented today with as much diligence as possible to uphold its original intention (as best as we can know), then the Constitution is already being violated, the 2nd Amendment specifically in this case. Yet, debates about the 2nd Amendment rarely are this literal. Because. Because we live in different times and different circumstances and we must take those times and circumstances into context and consideration. There is no uproar about not being able to own an F-16 fighter jet *arm*ed with AIM-9 Sidewinder and AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles http://www.f-16.net... Of course there isn't. That's because the vast majority of people would not consider it reasonable for other individual citizens to own or use them. Thus, it can be deemed reasonable and in some cases necessary to pass legislation to ban private ownership of a fighter jet as I described (or other seriously dangerous weapon) by individual citizens, thus undermining the 2nd Amendment. ------- Thank you for the accepting and leading me to research deep into this. If I win the lottery I'm going to get the paperwork started for my own fighter plane. It's gonna be awesome!