When approving the Bill of Rights, each former colony considered itself to be a free State, where State is synonymous with Nation. While the former colonies recognized the importance of working together, there was limited trust in the other States. Each State had its own Militia. Formal recognition that the central government was not to interfere with any State’s Militia was added to the Constitution as the Second Amendment.
This is not a radical reinterpretation of the Second Amendment. This interpretation is acknowledged by the current Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller (http://www.supremecourt.gov/...), specifically pages 3 and 25.
From page 3: “In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.”
After acknowledging this interpretation and presenting a guiding principle, the majority decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (written by Justice Scalia and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Thomas and Alito) begins rewriting the Second Amendment.
First they strike out the first half of the amendment. “The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,) and its operative clause (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.). The former does not limit the latter grammatically, but rather announces a purpose.”
From page 4: “apart from (a) clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause.” On page 7 they find “Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to “keep and bear Arms” in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as “the people.”” And with that move, they reached their conclusion “We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans.”
On page 25 they return to their original interpretation of the Second Amendment: “We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.”
Actually, if you know the history and are guided by the normal language of the amendment, it is clear that preserving the militias was the intent of the Second Amendment. The opinion (that the operative clause creates an individual right) does not fit the historical or linguistic evidence that Scalia supplies. This opinion remains unsupported by Scalia's arguments.
Taken in its entirety, the Second Amendment prohibits the Federal government from disarming the militia. That is the straightforward, written to be understood by the voters, interpretation.
Five members of the Supreme Court began with a straightforward, easy to understand (although anachronistic) sentence. They then choose to disregard its purpose and find another. To quote the learned W. C. Fields: “If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”