Grammatical and Usage Analysis of the 2nd. Amendment You might find the following interesting with repect to grammar and American usage analysis of the 2nd. Amendment:
 The following is taken from J. Neil Schulman's book Stopping Power,
(Pulpless.com, 1999 © 1999)

 //The first person usage refers to Mr. Schulman//

 "I just had a conversation with Mr. A. C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator for the Office of Instruction of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Mr. Brocki taught Advanced Placement English for several years at Van Nuys H.S., as well as having been a senior editor for Houghton Mifflin.......
 I gave Mr. Brocki my name.....then asked him to parse the following sentence:
"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."
 Mr Brocki informed me that the sentence was over punctuated, but the meaning could be extracted anyway:
 "A well-schooled electorate" is a nominative absolute.
 "being necessary to the security of a free State" is a participial phrase modifying "electorate."
 The subject (a compound subject) of the sentence is "the right of the people."
 “Shall not be infringed" is a verb phrase, with "not" as an adverb modifying the verb phrase "shall be infringed."
 "To keep and read books is an infinitive phrase modifying the verb phrase "Shall not be infringed."

 I then asked him if he could rephrase the sentence to make it clearer.
 Mr. Brocki said, "Because a well schooled electorate is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
 I asked: can the sentence be interpreted to restrict the right to keep and read books to a well schooled electorate.....
 He said, "No."
 I then identified my purpose and read the 2nd A. in full:
"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."
 I asked, "Is the structure and meaning of this sentence the same as the sentence I first quoted you?'
 He said, "Yes."

 I asked him to rephrase this sentence to make it clearer.

 He transformed the sentence the same way as the first sentence: "Because a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
 I asked him whether the meaning could have changed in 200 years.
 He said "No."
 I asked whether this sentence could be interpreted to restrict the right to keep arms to "a well regulated Militia."
 He said, "No."

 According to Mr. Brocki, the sentence means that the people are the militia, and that the people have the right which is mentioned.
 I asked him again to make sure:
 SCHULMAN: "Can the sentence be interpreted to mean that the right can be restricted to a "well-regulated militia?"
 BROCKI; "No, I don't see that."

 SCHULMAN; "Could another professional in English grammar or linguistics interpret the sentence to mean otherwise?"
 BROCKI: "I can't see any grounds for another interpretation."
 I asked Mr. Brocki if he would be willing to stake his professional reputation on the opinion, and be quoted on this.
 He said, "Yes."

 At no point in the conversation did I ask Mr. Brocki his opinion on the 2nd. Amendment, gun control, or the right to keep and bear arms. -July17, 1991