In his famous parable, “The Silence of the Sirens,” Franz Kafka tells us that the sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. “It is conceivable,” he says, “that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.”

That more fatal weapon, silence, is, perhaps, the key to the continuing ambiguity in the interpretation of the Second Amendment.

If the founders had wanted to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” they could have done so in a completely transparent manner: “Congress shall make no laws that infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” They did not. Why not? Why did they remain silent on so important an issue?

What they did say was: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The most natural and unstrained interpretation of this statement is that it concerns the necessity for a “well regulated” militia (a pressing issue at the time) and forbids the government from disarming the militia.