The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of people, trained in arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country. It is the whole people. A free people ought to be armed. When firearms go, all goes, we need them by the hour.
Firearms stand next to importance to the Constitution itself.
They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence. As the language of the Tenth Amendment shows, these two are of course not identical when the constitution means 'states' it says so. Thus as noted above, 'the people' at the core of the Second Amendment are the same 'people' at the heart of the Preamble and the First Amendment, namely citizens. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.