You are absolutely right. Those are the most important words. But the meaning of "well regulated" is not "controlled by the government" but "in proper working order".

Here you go:

https://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm

During those times, people used the phrase "well regulated" to mean something that works properly, not something that is tightly controlled.

"The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the writing of the 2nd amendment:


1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."
1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."
1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."
1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."
1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."
1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."


The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected."


The government doesn't usually refer to something it wants to regulate as "well regulated". It's usually referred to as "regulated" or "controlled" -- without a qualifier. Referring to something that you want to control as "well regulated" from the perspective of the regulator makes no sense.

Is it "well regulated" as opposed to "poorly regulated"? Or "regulated but we promise we'll look the other way" regulated? Is that supposed to mean "we really-really-really mean it this time it's really regulated, not like the last time when we didn't really mean it when we said regulated"?

It generally makes no sense for the people crafting a regulation to refer to the regulation they are crafting with qualifiers.

Parents do it to their toddlers with "I mean it this time". But lawmakers, when making amendments to the Supreme Law of the Land, not so much.



But even if you forget all that, do you think the people drafting the amendment actually thought that the way to prevent government tyranny is to have a m*****a that is tightly controlled by that same government, tyranny of which the m*****a is meant to prevent? You really think they were that stupid? You think that is the "spirit of the law" when it comes to the Second Amendment?

They got together and said: "Well, dudes, we really don't want to end up yet another tyrannical monarchy after several generations, so we need to do something. How about we recognize that the people can form a m*****a and restrain the government if need be? Great idea! And the government will be in charge of deciding who is in the m*****a, who gets to be armed with what, who is the officer in the m*****a, and what the m*****a is doing! Awesome, my dudes! Foolproof plan! Bring me some paprer, no the other kind of paprer, I'm going to jot this down before I forget!"

And that kids is how the Second Amendment was drafted. Not.


So yes, I agree that "well regulated" is the most important part of the Second Amendment. But not in the way you think it is.




Ah yes. As AOC and other prominent Democrats keep telling us: any law or regulation or implementation of such law that disproportionately affects people of colors is r****t. It doesn't matter if the law is well-meaning and just; if it happens to affect minorities in a negative way, then it's r****t. And anyone who disagrees with it is a r****t n**i pig.

That seems to be the main left's rhetoric these days.

Keeping this in mind, let's talk about background checks.

Currently, a background check would deny you if you have felony convictions and certain limited types of arrests. (The latter depends on the state.)

But that's not effective. Right? So we need to make background checks stricter, as the Democrats would have us believe.

So how do we make the process stricter?

Do we include all arrests as reason to deny the right to bear arms?

What about someone being detained and questioned by the police but not arrested? Many of the criminals had some run-ins with the law that didn't amount to an arrest let alone a conviction. So do we deny them too? For the greater good, right?

After all, if someone gets stopped and questioned by the police, maybe even more than once, shouldn't we deny them the right to defend themselves a way to murder four million babies per second with their black scary-looking weapon of war?

OK, let's assume we keep making background checks process stricter and stricter and stricter after each new mass shooting....

What will be the end result?

.....drum roll..... who gets stopped and detained and questioned and arrested more frequently? White people living in middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods or black and Hispanic people living in poor neighborhoods?

Right or wrong, but people of color, especially those who live in poor neighborhoods, end up on "law enforcement's radar" more frequently.

So we expand background checks and effectively turn the system from "shall issue" to "may issue", then all those people are going to be denied the right to buy a gun to defend themselves. Disproportionally poor black and poor Hispanic people.

Have you checked with AOC if she approves that? Watch out, you could be a N**i and not even know it. :)


To recap: you believe that the lawmakers passing the 2A thought that the future government should be in charge of deciding how the possible future government tyranny is to be prevented, and in addition to that you want fewer minorities to own guns to defend themsevles while statistically they as a group get victimized more frequently.

Are you one of the smart ones here? :)

Seriously though, any kind of a background check will always be either too restrictive or not effective enough. And in all probability, if you keep pushing it, we'll end up with a system that is both too restrictive for the law abiding citizens and still not effective enough against determined criminals.