1939 To 2008

For the English as a second language and/or "I am well to the left of median on the bell curve" crowd:

This is also for people who've never bothered with history past reading punditry on teh intartubes.

"The idea that [the 2nd amendment] only protected the militia's right to guns originates in 1939 with the Miller v US ruling."

While it's not what the Miller v US actually ruled, the proponents of gun control took the ruling to mean that the 2nd Amendment, alone of the Bill of Rights mentioning The People, meant a guarantee of government power to have a standing army.

From the Miller ruling to the Heller ruling there was not a single Supreme Court case addressing this misconception, so for the intervening 69 years there was no protection from government encroachment on the right to keep and bear arms provided by the 2nd Amendment.

Prior to Miller the scant number of rulings fall under what's known as the standard model of the 2nd Amendment.

Since I have to spell everything out in lurid detail for my readers who're left of median, the standard model of the 2nd is the gun owner wet-dream model.  No federal restrictions on gun ownership except as punishment for a crime.  We have the author's notes.  We have numerous Constitutional scholars research papers.

The second amendment applies, at a minimum, all the way up to ship borne artillery in non-government hands.

That part is actually in the main text of The Constitution, otherwise there'd be no need to empower Congress to write letters of marque and reprisal.  If it was about government ships and artillery, then declare war and send the Navy.

Since 2008, though, we have the Heller ruling and a fresh statement that small arms ownership is, indeed, and individual right protected from Federal encroachment by the 2nd Amendment.

We're presently getting cases wormed through the system to expand that ruling and reaffirm that the 19th century rulings were the correct ones.

Something else which might spill out of these new cases is 14th Amendment incorporation of the 2nd against the states.  A true expansion of our rights being recognized.