"the gray mush of the Second Amendment"

You aren't too interested in reason, so being interested in actual fact and law is clearly beyond your concern; nonetheless -- first -- this is the first draft of that which became the Second Amendment, as codified by James Madison -- show us where in it you find "gray mush" instead of clear and unequivocal intent:

"The right of the people (PLURAL, as in, "We the people"; it isn't, "We the individual," or, "I the people") to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia (NOT "individual") being the best security of a free country (NOT "individual"): but no person (INDIVIDUAL) religiously scrupulous of (AGAINST) bearing arms, shall be compelled (INVOLUNTARY) to render military service (NOT "self-defense") in person." Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1991), Ed. Veit, et al., at 30.

The final clause -- beginning "but no person" and ending "in person" -- is the ONLY posited "individual right" debated as concerns that Amendment. But note that that clause was OBVIOUSLY voted down; which OBVIOUSLY means the Amendment has nothing whatever to do with "individual" ANYTHING.

As obviously: When we want to know what the AUTHORS of the Second Amendment INTENDED by that Amendment, we go to the words that came out of the mouths of those authors while they were WRITING that Amendment.

Second: the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" -- which is FALSELY viewed by gun nuts as the ENTIRETY of the Second Amendment -- was drawn, for that Amendment, from the MILITIA clauses of four of the already-EXISTING STATE constitutions, those being:

Pennsylvania, Art. XIII
North Carolina, Art. XVII
Vermont, Art. XV
Massachusetts, Art. XVII.

Of particular interest -- if you're going to mouth off on these issues, you should have the integrity to FIRST know what the fuck you're talking about; and the gun industry-front NRA isn't going to tell you these facts -- is the Vermont constitution on this issue, which constitution "was framed by a convention which assembled at Windsor, July 2, 1777, and completed its labors July 8, 1777. . . . It was affirmed by the legislature at its sessions in 1779 and 1782, and declared to be a part of the laws of the State."*
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*The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters and Other Organic Laws of the United States, Part II (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, Second Edition, 1924), Compiled Under an Order of the United States Senate by Ben: Perley Poore, at 1857. And see 1860, 1865.
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First, the clause cited -- Chap. I, C. XV -- reads, in full:

"The people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves AND the State; and, as standing armies, in the time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

1. Note that being a constitution, and therefore LAW, the terms used are LEGAL terms.

2. Note that the "AND" is NOT "OR".

3. "State" is GOV'T -- NOT "area of land".

4. Note that everything in that clause concerns MILITARY. And as would be true in the 1791 debates of that which became the US Bill of Rights, the MILITIA was intended as the ALTERNATIVE to the "dangerous to liberty" "standing army".

And note that that cluase stipulates that the MILITARY, whether MILITIA -- which is "the people" who have the "right to bear arms for the defence of themselves AND the State" -- or "standing army," will be UNDER the "civil power" -- GOV'T/RULE OF LAW -- NOT in spite of it.

5. Note that NOTHING in that clause has anything whatever to do with "individual" anything. But -- and this underscores the fact that the Second Amendment has nothing whatever to do with "individual" ANYTHING, because they two were viewed SEAPRATELY, there is an ENTIRELY SEPARATE clause in the Vermont constitution which addresses THAT issue:

Chap. II., S. XXXIX. That the inhabitants of this State, shall have liberty to hunt and fowl, in seasonable times, on the lands they hold, and on other lands (not enclosed;) and, in like manner, to fish in all boatable and other waters, not private property, under proper regulations, to be hereafter made and provided by the General Assembly.

1. Note that there is NO authorization of, as example, "individual self-defense" -- one is authorized to "hunt and fowl," within strict limits -- or of, "defending against" GOV'T/RULE OF LAW. And note that it expressly stipulates that such rights shall be REGULATED, which REGULATION is done BY MEANS OF LAW; in other words, "gun control" REGULATION is not only constitutional -- here we have the constitution doing exactly that -- it is constitutionally STIPULATED.

In Coronary Artery Disease the high cholesterol is the disease and the heart attack is the symptom. If you get a heart attack, we should skip treating the symptom by your own logic.