Trouble with English, is it?

You wrote: “Your good guy with a gun example can be contradicted with the Ft Hood shooting where there were tons of good guys with guns.”

And I told you that was not accurate because there were only a handful of people who were armed on the base. The shooter was a military officer assigned to the base who was scheduled to be deployed to the Middle East. He was even a doctor (psychiatrist) assigned to the base, so his presence in the processing center would not have been unusual.

Incidentally, the FBI was already aware of his sympathies. They were monitoring his communications with people in the Middle East. Sadly, as was true in the case of Nikolas Cruz, the agency did nothing with the information and people died, just like they did in Parkland.

As I said, “well-regulated” had nothing to do with laws, it meant well-trained and disciplined.

Furthermore, the Second Amendment never said anything about limiting arms to those for militia service; that was Justice James McReynolds in United States v. Miller (1939). He opined that only possession of arms suitable for militia service was protected by the Second Amendment. He never once said the Second Amendment applied only to a collective right.

But let’s take Justice McReynolds at his word. This means that every male ages 18–44 would be required to possess a selective-fire rifle chambered in either 5.56x45 or 7.62x51 with a magazine capacity of at least 20 rounds, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol with a magazine capable of holding at least 15 rounds, a bayonet for the rifle, and certain militiamen would be expected to have a belt-fed Squad Automatic Weapon. Of course, they would also be expected to have the standard military loadout of 200 rounds of ammunition at all times.

Forty-some-odd-million Americans with real assault rifles.

Since they need to be “well-regulated,” we must train them in the effective use of their guns. The ones who show some exceptional skill, we will call Designated Marksmen and require that they have high-powered rifles with telescopic sights so they can reliably hit a target at at least 800 meters, that’s about half a mile.The rest will learn to hit at shorter ranges of about 650 feet.

That’s the America of Justice McReynolds, the Militia Act of 1903 and the collective interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Oh, and consistent with militias since the early colonial days, these guys will be keeping their guns at home.

Otherwise, we have to treat them like members of the National Guard at an initial cost of more than $460 billion and an annual cost of $483 billion. Plus the cost of uniforms, expended ammunition, supervisory officers and all the rest.

That’s a pretty high price for being clueless about the Second Amendment.