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Just to put a bit of scholarly history in perspective:
"And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its bur[d]ens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights." Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833)
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"The right declared was meant to be a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and as a necessary and efficient means of regaining rights when temporarily overturned by usurpation.
"The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.
"What Arms may be kept. -- The arms intended by the Constitution are such as are suitable for the general defence of the community against invasion or oppression, and the secret carrying of those suited merely to deadly individual encounters may be prohibited." Thomas Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law (1880)
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"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed; where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once." Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567, 570 (Kozinski, J., dissenting).
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Two rather distinguished scholars and a current Circuit Judge. All espousing what the purpose of the amendment was and is for, from basically the beginning, middle and current history of the US.
Also, please remember that the Heller decision did not in any shape or form, address the prefatory clause. The courts have simply refused to opine on this matter, other than a brief sentence from the Miller decision.
Nor do I believe that the Court will ever pass judgment on the prefatory clause within our lifetimes. The reasons for avoiding the clause are purely political; self-defensive and self-serving. No government older than a few decades will ever admit that its citizens have the right and duty as was written into the DOI.
Like it or not, the U.S. Constitution was written with that in mind.
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