Second Amendment is misunderstood, abused ?

I read the following article and thought to myself, "I need to dissect this and see if and where there are any flaws in the logic".

( http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=626875&category=OPINION&newsdate=10/3/2007 )
"Second Amendment is misunderstood, abused
First published: Wednesday, October 3, 2007 The Sept. 23 editorial, "Schenectady's bleeding," asks when the shootings in Albany and Schenectady will end. Unfortunately, the shootings and killing will not end until members of Congress, judges of the nation's courts and justices of the U.S. Supreme Court learn and understand the language of our Constitution, and end the reign of intimidation supported by the National Rifle Association. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states, "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." That "right of the people" is dependent upon being a member of a "well-regulated militia". The only regulated militias, outside of the armed forces of the United States, are the states' National Guard units. Militia is defined as "an organized body of citizens, as the National Guard, drilled and equipped as soldiers, but called to active service only in emergencies. What is it about our language our judges and justices do not comprehend, and what is it about the National Rifle Association that fights so hard to provide weapons of death and destruction, without proper qualifications or licensing?It is time to give true meaning to the Second Amendment.
LEE DEEMS
Albany"

First lets start with the premise that a ban or limit on guns will end shootings in Albany and Schenectady. Please check my post from yesterday (http://stevesgarage.blogspot.com/2007/10/fair-question.html) "A Fair Question". Now do some research on Washington D.C., UK, Canada, Australia, etc gun bans. It starts to become intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that this premise holds no water.
Secondly this study ( http://www.gunowners.org/op0746.htm ) shows that: "Nation's Rates Of Private Gun Ownership Do Not Correlate To Rates Of Murder" Don B. Kates and Carol Hehmeyer As published in Daily Journal. Many people think that nations with more firearms will have more murder and that banning firearms will reduce murder and other violence. This canard does not comport, however, with criminological research in the U.S. or elsewhere. An extensive study that one of us (Kates) recently published with Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser confirms the negative results of two large-scale international studies over the past 15 years. ("Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide: A Review of International Evidence," Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 30, pages 651-694.) These studies compared data from a large number of nations around the world. There were no instances of nations with high gun ownership having higher murder rates than nations with low gun ownership. If anything it was the reverse, for reasons discussed below" etc.
So it is that the basic underlying assumption of "less guns equals less crime" is not valid.

Regarding the term "regulated militia" including only active duty national guard, The Militia Act of 1903--together with its 1908 amendment--was, in the words of a leading historian of the National Guard, "the most important national legislation in militia history." The act, also known as the Dick Act in honor of Dick, repealed the Militia Act of 1792 and divided the militia into two groups: the Reserve Militia, defined as all able-bodied men between 18 and 45, and the Organized Militia, defined as state units receiving federal support.
Some definitions: "Militia" From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Militia is an army composed of ordinary [1] citizens to provide defense, emergency or paramilitary service, or those engaged in such activity. The word can have five somewhat different meanings: Defense activity, as well as those engaged in it, when it is defense of the public, its territory, property, and laws. The entire able-bodied male population of a community, town, or state, available to be called to arms against an invading enemy, to enforce the law, or to respond to a disaster. A similar common law provision, the posse comitatus, exists in jurisdictions with English judicial origin for law enforcement authority to conscript from the male population to assist with keeping the peace, law enforcement, etc.. A private, non-government force, not necessarily directly supported or sanctioned by its government. An official reserve army, composed of citizen soldiers. Called by various name in different countries such as; the Army Reserve, National Guard, or State Defense Forces. The national police forces in Russia, and other former CIS countries, or the former Soviet Union: Militsiya. In any of these cases, a militia is distinct from a regular army. It can serve to supplement the regular military, or it can oppose it, for example to resist a coup d'état. In some circumstances, the "enemies" against which a militia is mobilized are domestic political opponents of the government, such as strikers. In many cases the role, or even the existence of a militia, is controversial. For these reasons legal restrictions may be placed on the mobilization or use of militia.
The meaning of the phrase "well-regulated" in the 2nd amendment From: Brian T. Halonen <halonen@csd.uwm.edu>The following are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary, and bracket in time the writing of the 2nd amendment:1709: "If a liberal Education has formed in us well-regulated Appetites and worthy Inclinations."1714: "The practice of all well-regulated courts of justice in the world."1812: "The equation of time ... is the adjustment of the difference of time as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial."1848: "A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Mayor."1862: "It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding."1894: "The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.

The term "The People" is easy to define. Simply look at it in context, check what it means in all of the rest of the amendments and the basic constitution. It means the people, us, you and me, all law abiding citizens (not otherwise prohibited) not a state or a government entity.

The inference that gun ownership should require "proper qualifications or licensing" seams to conflict with "shall not be infringed". Would not a set of rules requiring qualifying for a license to exercise a constitutionally guaranteed right, in effect, be a de facto infringement? I think so.

On The National Rifle Association, it takes quite a distortion of logic to assume they have enough clout that they could "Intimidate" any "members of Congress, judges of the nation's courts and justices of the U.S. Supreme Court". Also, I have searched diligently and I can not find a single instance where they "provide weapons of death and destruction" to anyone, ever. They are apparently, just what they clam to be, a grassroots organization dedicated to protecting a constitutionally guaranteed right.

So, my conclusion is, our judges and justices seam to be able comprehend language just fine, the NRA defends and protects that language, baning of guns does not reduce shootings, and the second amendment guarantees the individual law abiding citizen has the right to own guns for the protection of life and liberty from all enemies, foreign and domestic, without the threat of government infringement, and that is its true meaning.