Amendment II
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
First let’s look at the pieces of this Amendment;
The Prefatory clause: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state
And then the Operative clause the right of the people to keep and bear arm’s, shall not be infringed.
During the D.C. Vs. Heller case Justice Scalia made this comment about the ownership of weapons:
“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
In the end it was decided that for the people to be protected from their government their right to own firearms would not be infringed but it could be regulated
The McDonald Vs. Chicago case decided if the 2nd amendment was incorporated, which simply means if the states themselves have to allow this right or if they can regulate or ban it themselves. In this case it was decided the second Amendment was incorporated and therefore the states had to allow gun ownership by adults, but again they can allow for regulation such as background checks.
Interestingly enough we now know that gun ownership reduces crime and allows for people to defend themselves properly from those that make harm them. In Detroit in the last year the Chief of Police has stated he wants civilians to buy weapons to defend themselves from crime that the department is ill equipped to protect the citizens from and crime has reduced greatly (at least 7%).
Now people get hung up on the well regulated militia part of the second amendment but in reality it was simply stating that the public has a right to defend themselves from, crime, from invaders and from their own government if it became overbearing and allowed the citizens to own those weapons it would need to accomplish this task.