The way I see it, punctuation is key here.
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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.
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Of course, couple that with the definition of "well regulated", "militia", "free state", & "the people" come into play.
Also, keep in mind that the Bill of Rights outline "INDIVIDUAL" rights, the rights of the individual. I hate to quote any one source online but as basic a search return as it is, Google's Answer.com worded it pretty well:
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The Bill of Rights is commonly viewed as consisting of the first ten articles of Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America. But it is the specific guarantees of individual liberties in the first eight amendments that the public normally regards as the Bill of Rights. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide generally that rights not specified and powers not delegated to the federal government in the Constitution will remain with the people and the states.
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The Good: The Bill Of Rights is not very wordy, and is pretty direct.
The Bad: This simultaneously leads to absolutes and interpretations, depending on who is reading it and breaking it down for discussion.
The "Militia" part gets misinterpreted, even as a dated phrase, possibly because it appears elsewhere in the document about quartering. Depending on who you're debating, if they hark on this fact it makes it harder to explain the definition of a Militia because they may not be taking the historical timeline into account(assembly of a Militia, versus the existence of an active Militia).
But the point remains that your average Joe took his personal firearm and bullet casts, and went to war. If it wasn't for those personally owned firearms, we very well may have lost. So when they formed the structure of basic individual rights, they knew how important it was to be able to protect everything that they were about to create as a basis for living this free life that they so wanted. Without the 2nd amendment, there is no way to protect the other 9.
We were lucky to have such incredibly intelligent and far-seeing people designing this country.
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Divemedic, wow that's a great point. I drove home a similar replacement argument with my father last night. Following an argument on how "these days" it's up to the cops to stop crime, my mother came home and he mentioned that he found a fire extinguisher while cleaning his truck and I proceded to argue "what in the world do you need a fire extinguisher for? The fire department is RIGHT DOWN THE STREET!" He brushed it off conversationally, but I could see that it struck home in his head. He made an immediate connection and even though he dismissed it, you could tell it unlocked a door or two against the argument.