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A mere 27 words in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights somehow manage to incite some of the most heated and occasionally violent debates over two centuries after its drafting. The Second Amendment provides: "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." Widely divergent contentions emerge from this sentence. Some believe that the Second Amendment provides an absolute, personal right to bear arms. Others argue that any right to bear arms is subordinate to ensuring public safety. A third argument contends that the Second Amendment simply restricts the powers of the national government and grants the states the right to maintain a militia separate from a federally-controlled army.

Most of the controversy surrounding the Second Amendment has arisen in the second half of the twentieth century, although that...