entire amendment to the constitution concerns guns. but does that amendment truly mean what the nra and others have recently led us to believe? a well-regulated militia, comma, being necessary for the security of a free state, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, comma, shall not be infringed. those 27 words and three commas constitute the entirety of the second amendment. no disrespect to james madison, but grammarians and their red pens would have a field day with the sentence. no one is exactly sure what the first clause about the militia has to do with the clause about the right to bear arms. for almost 200 years, the puzzlement over the meaning was barely an issue. but then in the 1970s, new leadership took over at the nra