Debate on the interpretation of the second amendment has been sharply polarized between those who claim that it guarantees nothing to individuals, protects only the State's right to maintain organized military units, and thus poses no obstacle to gun control (the 'exclusively State's right' view), and those who claim that the amendment guarantees some sort of individual right to arms (the 'individual right' view). Historical analysis indicates that the Founders intended the second amendment to guarantee a person the right to possess certain kinds of weapons in the home under certain kinds of circumstances. The precise details and parameters of that guarantee remain unclear. In part, this is because neither Federal, State, nor local governments have generally moved beyond gun control to the extreme of confiscation. In even larger part, the delay in defining its paramaters is attributable to the diversion and monopolization of legal analysis by the false dichotomy between the exclusively State's right and the unrestricted individual right interpretations. In fact, the arms of the State's militias were and are the personally owned arms of the general citizenry, so that the amendment's dual intention to protect both was achieved by guaranteeing the citizenry a right to possess arms individually. Finally, rational, effectual gun control strategies can be reconciled with the constitutional scheme. A total of 290 footnotes are provided.