Fewer guns mean fewer killings. We want a handgun ban.

[Pope George Ringo II]

33. I don't think this argument works from a couple of perspectives

1) Given the use of the word "right" we know they can't have intended to limit it to a formal militia. Governments--and by extension their formal militias--don't have "rights". Governments have responsibilities, authorizations, prohibitions, and so forth, but never rights. We may get sloppy about that now, and we may have genuine philosophical disagreements about that now, but there's no doubt about how the Founders viewed the concept of "rights." That word is a big hurdle to clear when examining the Founders' intent.

2) The "intent" argument really flounders when considering that the Second Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights. When we're talking about the ten Amendments passed as a bloc at basically the same time as the Constitution and which were added purely to make people feel better about the Constitution explicitly by putting limits on government power, it's functionally impossible to argue that any part of the Bill of Rights exists to give the government the authority to limit the rights of the people.

I'm not necessarily opposed to some kind of ban on philosophical grounds at this point, so don't misunderstand me. I do think it's a net negative politically, and I don't think it's actually legal short of a Constitutional Amendment. If you want to argue that saving lives is worth a political cost, I can deal with that even if I'm not as convinced of the math. But I believe your goal should be that Amendment if you want to actually accomplish anything.