Anyone who's interested in the right to bear arms and can slog their way through a law review article should head to the Volokh Conspiracy, where Randy Barnett has posted a link to his article for the Texas Law Review entitled "Was the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Conditioned on Service in an Organized Militia?":



"In this essay, I evaluate the case made for this historical claim by Richard Uviller and William Merkel in their book, The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent. I also evaluate their denial that the original meaning of Fourteenth Amendment protected an individual right to arms unconditioned on militia service. I find both claims inconsistent with the available evidence of original meaning and also, perhaps surprisingly, with existing federal law."