I appreciate the time and effort you put into that Response.

You made several references to other documents, etc. in the self-defense argument, but the term “self-defense” is not present in the Constitution. I was limiting my argument to the words in that document.

As I put in the Note at the top of the essay, Les Adams’s Primer is my primary source for the arguments I refute, including the part about all armed citizens being a part of any “Militia.”

As you pointed out, a right to keep and bear arms cannot be an a priori Right because guns are made by humans, and “a priori”means the Right cannot refer to anything made by humans.

Otherwise, you mostly want argue about logic. My logic is strong, yours is weak. For example, you go on about an untrained, unarmed recruit being part of a military service, and equate that with being in a ‘Militia’ that consists of adults who have arms. Surely you understand that a recruit is part of an existing (“disciplined”) organization, which a person with a gun is not.

In the end, I think having Congress create a Militia as the Constitution allows would be a great way to resolve this issue, especially the more latitude that could be allowed regarding arms and their storage for different states, or even counties within states.