During the recent presidential debates, and over the last few years in many lawsuits, there were numerous arguments about gun control in this country. Specifically, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was always quoted, interpreted, and reinterpreted. Most people know it’s about the straight forward right to carry guns. Or is it?

The amendment itself is a short 27 words:

These simple words have caused disagreements, arguments, and academic debates for hundreds of years, and the discord will most likely continue for much longer into the future.

Giving it a casual reading by a “normal,” “average” person today, he or she may (or may not) understand the amendment to mean something like this:

A well trained and well disciplined state military unit made up of civilians is necessary to protect the safety and freedom of the individual states. For that reason, every state shall have the right to possess firearms. Similarly, the right of citizens to possess firearms to protect themselves shall not be infringed upon.

Ever since it became law in 1791, common citizens, language experts, historians, and legal scholars have repeatedly asked the following questions:

1. What is a well regulated militia?
2. Does the phrase “to keep and bear arms” mean to carry weapons on an individual’s body, or just idiomatically to join the military, as in “to bear arms against foreign enemies?”
3. Who are the “people?” Are they members of a state militia, or are they individual citizens?
4. If a private citizen can carry guns, what kinds of guns are allowed?

If you spend some time thinking about this amendment, you probably could come up with more questions than answers from these words that are impressive in preempting dictatorship and tyranny but imprecise in meaning and execution. It is like a well crafted riddle: the more you read it, the more confusing it becomes. If you feel somewhat inadequate and frustrated because you are neither an English major nor a lawyer, don’t be. The Supreme Court justices, supposedly as scholarly as most of them have been, were not able to come to a consensus. So, when both Candidate Trump and Candidate Clinton say that they “respect” the Second Amendment, what do they mean? Is this another piece of political talk that keeps us in suspense?

Perhaps they are both being honest and agreeable for a change. Maybe that’s their way of saying, “I really don’t understand it, so I’m not going into details about it.”

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