If the Second Amendment covers self-defense and hunting, why was the Militia Clause included?
Constitutional drafters frequently inserted explanations for why they chose to include a particular provision. An excellent survey of this practice, noting dozens of explanatory provisions in early constitutional texts, is included in Prof. Eugene Volokh’s The Commonplace Second Amendment, 73 NYU L. Rev. 793 (1998). But such prefatory explanations, while interesting, have never been held to limit or eviscerate the plain operative meaning of the constitutional text. One reason offered to support an action does not foreclose other reasons. This is a matter of simple grammar. If the First Amendment were worded, “A well-educated electorate being necessary to the security of a free state, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech,” it would be grammatically illogical to claim that free speech rights are limited to registered voters or election-campaign material. There are two other instances of explanatory language in the U.S. Constitution. Consider, first, the famous pream
