The 2nd Amendment prohibition as an undetached consequent

I am increasingly partial to the Logic 101 reading of the 2nd Amendment, publicly endorsed by one of the Parkland high schoolers and cited by me in earlier posts.

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.

The given text is equivalent to this.

Since 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.

And that is equivalent to:

If 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. And a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.

Which means the 2nd Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms is expressly conditional on a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state - a condition the authors asserted was true at the time in its very text.

But for our time and for the future, what matters is not whether the condition was true in late 18th Century America, but whether it is true in our time.

The 2nd Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed if a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.

But a militia is not necessary, in our time.

The Department of Defense and the forces answering to it pretty well have the security of our free state, the United States of America, covered.

So the 2nd Amendment prohibition on infringement does not apply to our case.

Still, no court seems ever to have read it that way, no conservative court ever will, and no liberal court would risk the overwhelming wave of incredulous outrage that would ensue upon formal adoption of this reading.

We're going to have to repeal the damned thing.

[Another way to look at it.

The 2nd Amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed if a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, and asserts that such a militia is necessary.

But it does not say the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed if somewhere in the constitution it is asserted that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.

It is the actual fact of the thing that matters, not an assertion concerning the matter.

And in actual fact such a militia is not necessary.

It is more than merely arguable that it was not necessary even then.]

PS.

Some people read the Second Amendment as setting forth a conditional right, but not also asserting that the condition obtains.

They take

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.

as equivalent to

If 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.

Of course, if that is right we end up in the same place, with an undetached consequent, given that such a militia is not necessary.