Does the Second Amendment apply to individuals or collectively society? Consider that the Bill of Rights does not grant any rights, but protects natural rights from infringement by government. Is the defense of society best left in the hands of society itself, or a subset which has little incentive to provide effective and efficient defense? Let's start with the gun rights issue first:
Anti-gun lobbyists consider the Second Amendment antiquated, asking what militias could protect us from today. The pro-gun side answers: "Tyrants", citing King George III, Hitler's Germany, or another event so seemingly distant that the argument seems academic. Even some who want stricter controls might concede the home-defense argument. But they would never want Joe Public armed with the sorts of guns carried by soldiers and police. Are militias relevant today?
Do you think it strange that citizens might be called to grab their gun, and rush to the defense of their community or region against some threat? Why is it strange? Small towns do the same thing with volunteer fire departments. Bankers, plumbers, or gym teachers, all become firemen when there's a fire raging. You can't wait for experts to put out the fire, everybody gets involved. That same principle describes a militia.
Another thing to consider was the inherent threat which the founders recognized in a standing army as opposed to volunteer militias. Compounding that issue is the application of Bastiat's "legal plunder" principle, through which the state gains favor from those joining the standing army, and who benefit and enable the state to extract resources from society as a whole:
"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder..."
Absent the "benefits" of legal plunder, it is unlikely that a standing army could exist, promoting volunteer militias which would either support or oppose a particular effort of defense of communities by members of that community. Without coercion, militarization of local police could also be negated by the move to a voluntary defense, with protecting localities entrusted to those either volunteering for the positions, or by voluntary participation (funding) of private defense forces held accountable by the communities they are charged to defend.
Robert P. Murphy explains why services such as defense are best left to the private sector, absent intervention by the state:
"...even though the TSA had been in place for eight years at that point, it took a vigilant member of the private sector, i.e., the Dutch tourist, to avert catastrophe."
More: mises.org/daily/4873
As is typical, it is the general public which invariably does a better job of protecting society than the state. The corruption inherent in the application of legal plunder inevitably leads to a perversion of "defense," leaving society unable to defend itself, and at greater risk from those charged with defending the rest of us.
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