The Second Amendment of the United States constitution is one the most misunderstood and most widely discussed of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Debate over the Second Amendment escalated in the late 20th century, when organizations lobbying for gun control in the United States found themselves debating pro-gun lobbies over the precise meaning of this Amendment. The arguments which rage over this Amendment hinge on what exactly it means and who it is supposed to be referencing. Unfortunately for scholars who are interested in the Second Amendment debate, few Supreme Court cases has tested the Second Amendment, making it even more challenging to analyze the intent of these loaded words.

The text of the Second Amendment reads, 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.” Several other drafts of the Second Amendment change the capitalization and punctuation, although the text remains the same. The crux of the debate over the Second Amendment is whether or not it allows individual Americans to own weapons, specifically firearms, and, if so, what sort of firearms they can own.

There are a number of schools of thought on the Second Amendment. The first believes that the Amendment was framed as a State's rights issue, meaning that it was intended to protect the right of individual states to form and arm militias. Others argue that since members of a citizen militia are required to equip themselves, the Amendment protects the rights of individual citizens. A third school of thought is a compromise between the two, suggesting that people are permitted to keep and bear arms which are related to militia duty.

Gun ownership and gun control are sticky issues in the United States. Organizations like the National Rifle Association would like to promote responsible gun ownership for all American citizens who wish to possess weapons, while other groups believe that Americans should only be able to own certain types of guns, if at all. The somewhat vague meaning of the Second Amendment has made rational discussion of these issues very challenging, as the contents are open to interpretation.

The debate over the Second Amendment often challenges the precise definitions of “people,” “arms,” and “militia” in the text in the hopes of getting a clearer idea of the meaning of the Amendment. In fact, the concept of protected arms ownership existed in common law when the Constitution was written, and it is entirely possible that the framers left the Second Amendment vague because they assumed that everyone was already aware that individual citizens could own arms. However, what exactly “arms” are is a subject for debate, since swords, spears, and other weapons can also be considered “arms,” and the military weapons in the 1700s were not comparable to the weapons used today.

The debate over the Second Amendment is unlikely to cease in the future, even if it is tested in the Supreme Court, because gun control is such a sensitive issue in America. Numerous scholarly texts have reviewed the content and possible meaning of the Second Amendment; no matter how you argue it, you can probably find extensively researched scholarly material to back up your point of view.