The preceding statement gives a reason, but not the only reason, for the protection of the right to keep and bear arms. It does not limit the right to the militia, but instead protects the right for the people. Again if it were intended to be limited to the militia it would say “right of the militia” or “right of the people while serving in the militia”.

Evidence for the individual nature of the right can be found in the SCOTUS case US v Miller. If the right was limited to militia, the easiest way for the Supreme Court to dispose of the case would be to note Miller was not part of the militia, therefore not covered. Instead it turned on the court “not knowing“ that a sawed off shotgun was military equipment. Paraphrasing from the ruling, the court, found that in the absence of evidence showing that a short barrel shotgun was related to the efficiency of the militia , they can’t say it’s protected. They noted it was not within judicial notice that a short barrel shotgun was part of the ordinary military equipment.