First time poster here is a good resource I have been using to educate the masses. A small section from his book. Hope it's OK to post the link it's a free download.
Just as the term "arms" is generic and thus includes modern firearms as a whole, the term "the people" plainly means members of the populace at large. In 1990, the Supreme Court made clear that all law-abiding Americans are protected by the second amendment as follows:
"the people" seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. ... The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the
Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and
reserved to "the people." See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1, ("Congress shall make no law . . .
abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble"); Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the People
of the several States") (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means
conclusive, it suggests that 'the people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that(pg.93) community.8 Traditionally, the Supreme Court has paid little attention to the second amendment. It noted in the Dred Scott case that recognition of African Americans as citizens would exempt them from "police regulations"9 and allow them "to keep and carry arms wherever they went."10 During Reconstruction, the Court stated that the rights of the people "peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes"11 and "of bearing arms for a lawful purpose"12 were not granted by the Constitution because they existed long before its adoption.13 A later opinion again recognized "the right of the people to keep and bear arms"14 and repeated that the second amendment is a limitation "upon the power of Congress and the National government . . . ."15 At the turn of the century, the Court wrote concerning free speech and press and "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," that "the law is perfectly well settled that the first ten amendments to the constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we inherited from our English ancestors . . . ."16 Only in United States v. Miller17 has the high court
Pre-Revolutionary Origins of the Second Amendment : Halbrook : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive