Security of a free state contemplates a systemic breakdown, insurrection and foreign invasion which a standing army may not be capable of resisting. The federal government is charged in Article I with calling out the militia, and must protect the broader "...peoples' right to keep and bear arms..." (Clearly, that right is an individual right as the militia, if called out, must consist of persons bearing arms suitable for the times, in proper condition, and with the bearer having knowledge of how to use the arm -- the common interpretation of "well-regulated"
. Further, the right is no more a "communal right" than the Fourth is a communal right because it also is couched in terms of the "People." No right in the BOR is expressed in any other manner than "individual."
The police (local or otherwise) are not charged with protecting an individual. They are charged with investigating crimes, collecting evidence, apprehending suspects and presenting their findings to a prosecutor. The police cannot in any practical way protect people unless they are on the scene at the time of a crime, a rare occasion. This again underwrites the Second as an individual right (the Constitution does not explicitly say what a citizen can do with that right, and that is the whole point). It only references a specific duty of the federal government to secure a free state as outlined in the Articles.
The Second recognizes "security" from the day-to-day needs of individuals under threat by criminals, all the way up through insurrection to the more global threat of invasion. There is no guarantee that security (through self-defense or through successful resistance to subjugation) will be successful, only that the right itself is guaranteed.
I enjoyed your essay, it is something that needed to be said.
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