But of course "they" did, in the most unequivocal terms. The very first phrase of the Constitution--"*We* the people"-- defines "people" as a plural, not a collective, noun. Although the "Framers" of the Bill of Rights were not the original Philadelphia writers of the text but the popular masses who insisted on inclusion of those guarantees of their rights, this makes no difference. The Constitution would never have been ratified if the people even suspected that it gave them not individual but governmentally defined "collective" rights, nor that their right to keep and bear their firearms would disappear in favor of their "right" to enlist in a governmentally regimented military force.
Shane Mage
"When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly.
When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner)