[Uncle Billy]

The means to amend the Constitution and the Supreme Court are what the Founders gave us to adapt our most fundamental laws to changing times and changing social and cultural evolution (or regression).

What they intended with all that they wrote and ratified as the basis of our system of laws (the Bill of Rights) were directed at the recent history of the colonies and the issues the country faced in 1791.

If asked whether they believed their interpretation of the Bill of Rights was written in stone and was meant to remain unaltered forever, they'd look at the questioners with raised eyebrows and with disdain remind them of the means they provided in the Constitution to amend the Constitution (and therefore amend the Bill of Rights); and the Supreme Court, whose interpretations of the Constitution are made by people of the times the questions come up in and are without means of being appealed except by amendment.

That process has worked since the beginning. For example: The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech and a free press. Those were entirely the freedom of the use of words so that the people could govern themselves by consensus. No other means of expression, such as the graphic arts were included, because they weren't necessary for governance by the people. As time passed the decisions of the Supreme Court expanded those freedoms to become the freedom of expression, a word not used in the original First Amendment. Since Supreme Court decisions have the weight of law, the freedom of expression became our First Amendment right, and any form of expression is protected within constraints that are continuously being edited by the Supreme Court.

So if asked whether today's civilians have the right to modern combat weapons without any restrictions, they'd say that that issue ought to have been brought up before the Supreme Court of these days for their interpretation of the 2A based on the culture, the society and the obligation of the Federal government to serve its citizens in today's world. They'd say, don't ask us, think for yourselves and use what we gave you to govern yourselves, and be guided by the words and intentions of the Preamble to the Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."