re: Jones “The Second Amendment is not an absolute right, not a God-given right"

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Go back and read the Heller decision. Even Justice Scalia said that it's not an "absolute right."

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He was talking about it not being unlimited. There are limits on all rights, but what is in question is the extent of those limits. The left would have us to believe that no firearms should be protected except for muzzle loaders that the founders understood, except now Gabby Giffords' anti-gun organization is warning against the dangers of even muzzle loaders

What we need to understand first before debating which guns should be legal is the intent of the founders in writing the 2nd amendment. If it is understood that arms should owned and operated by the people of the US for use against a potentially despotic government, then many of the limits that the left argues for go away.

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So is, "A well regulated militia."

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You're right that the phrase is unambiguous. The framers understood the "militia" to be the people, capable of bearing arms in times of necessity.

Be careful imposing your understanding of words and phrases on documents written a long time ago. Their understanding wasn't necessarily our understanding, and that's important when talking about "intent".

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That's true, but if rights are not God given, then there is no objective justification for fighting for those rights or to defend those rights.

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You're telling me there is no objective reason to want to protect life, liberty, and property?

The Greek city states had armed militias which were under the control of the various governments, so your assertion that the concept of state-controlled militias wasn't around in 1787 is just flat-out false. There were also militarized militias fighting on both sides during the American Revolution. The point you are totally missing is the intent that the state militias be well-regulated. The drafters certainly didn't intend on them to be an uncontrolled, loose collection of people like you seem to be asserting. Shay's Rebellion was very much on the drafters' minds. Otherwise, they wouldn't have included the important clause "A well-regulated militia." Other key points that anyone can go back and verify is that the phrase "to bear arms" was commonly used to mean service in a military formation, irregular or regular, in the parlance of the times, and the word "people" was often used by the drafters to mean "states."

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You're right that the phrase is unambiguous. The framers understood the "militia" to be the people, capable of bearing arms in times of necessity.

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And you're leaving out the key point that the framers wanted the militias to be controlled and regulated by the states. They certainly did NOT intend for the militias to be an uncontrolled mob running around doing what they wanted.

Go pull out a dictionary and look up the words:

"well"

"regulated"

"militia"

Look up: Right of the People Yawn: the "regulated" issue has come up for decades, same argument, just different spin. Not the first time we've been down this road with the Progs, Fun times.

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It says the right of the people shall not be infringed, not the right of the militia

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They always skip over that part.

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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.

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Do you think the Constitution's preamble was talking about militias too? It was painfully obvious "the people" was used to describe ordinary citizens.

Of all the terrible justifications the left tries to use, the whole "militia" angle has always been the one I hate the most. It just shows a complete lack of any real thought.