"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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Does the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the right to keep and bear arms, reflect an individual right, or merely the right of the militia?
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The answer is the former, with a spotty yet pretty consistent trail of Supreme Court and state Supreme Court case law to back it up.  
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I will also show that our Second Amendment rights are most secure under a consistent application of liberal Constitutional legal theory, and are most jeopardized by the ultraconservative theories of the judges that President Bush wants to place on the federal bench.  And, I will show that our Second Amendment rights depend upon a presumption of the human species that is most consistent with a liberal, humanistic worldview.
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Intent of the Founding Fathers
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The most obvious indication that the Second Amendment was intended as an individual right is the fact that every other phrase in the Bill of Rights that refers to rights of the "people" was written and intended to refer to individuals.  The Second Amendment is deeply embedded in the portion of the Bill of Rights that guarantees individual rights, rather than perhaps tacked alongside the Tenth Amendment, where it might be construed to be strictly a state right.
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During the ratification of the Constitution, the state of New Hampshire made the official recommendation that "Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion."  At the Massacusetts ratifying convention, Samuel Adams urged an amendment guaranteeing the individual right to bear arms.  New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania likewise called for a specific protection for the individual right to firearms.
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Early Court Rulings Assume Individual-Rights Interpretation
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Prior to the Civil War, many state court rulings clearly reflected the assumption that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right rather than merely a states-rights issue or a state militia privilege.
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In Aldridge v. Commonwealth (1824), an appellate court in Virginia dealt with the rights of free Blacks, the restrictions upon which were "inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, both of this State and of the United States," including "their right to bear arms."
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In Simpson v. State (1833), the Tennessee Supreme Court said of the state constitution's equivalent of the Second Amendment, "By this clause of the constitution, an express power is given and secured to all the free citizens of the state to keep and bear arms for their defence, without any qualification whatever as to their kind or nature." [Italic emphasis mine.]
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In State v. Reid (1840), the Alabama Supreme Court upheld a ban on carrying concealed guns and knives.  However, the ban was upheld on the assumption that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right:  "The evil which was intended to be remedied by the provision quoted [the right to keep and bear arms], was a denial of the right of Protestants to have arms for their defence, and not an inhibition to wear them secretly."
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And in Nunn v. State (1846), the Supreme Court of Georgia referred to the Second Amendment in reversing the conviction of a man wrongfully charged with openly carrying a firearm: "inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly, is in conflict with the Constitution, and void."
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The Supreme Court Weighs In
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The Supreme Court has had surprisingly little to say about the Second Amendment.  Some of what it has said should come as a stern warning to today's demands for appointing more "conservatives" to the federal courts.
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In Cruikshank v. United States (1876), a conservative Supreme Court mirrored today's most extreme "conservative" legal thought in holding that the Second Amendment (and the rest of the Bill of Rights) only restrained the federal government -- states were free to restrict or ban firearms to their hearts' content.  But even Cruikshank considered the Second Amendment an individual immunity rather than a mere collective militia-based right asserted by some liberal scholars.
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Presser v. Illinois (1886) reached the same conclusion, holding that the Second Amendment only restrained the federal government.  Yet Presser, as well, considered the amendment to be an individual immunity of some sort.  Had the amendment represented only a collective militia right, the plaintiff would not have found standing to lodge a Second Amendment complaint.
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In both cases, the Second Amendment was indeed considered an individual right rather than a militia or state right.  The cases merely ruled that the the amendment only shielded individuals from the federal government.
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Even the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) case observed that if Blacks were considered citizens, it "would give to persons of the negro race... to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."  The right to keep and bear arms was seen as an individual right.
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And while United States v. Miller (1939) examined limitations on what kinds of arms could be restricted, it lends support to the view that the collective role of the militia arises from the individual right to keep and bear arms: "With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces, the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view."
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The Second Amendment and Liberal Constitutional Theory
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The architect of the 14th Amendment, Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, in the first session of the 42nd Congress (March 29, 1871), listed the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights, as being the rights of individual citizens.  Moreover, he stressed, in no uncertain terms, that the Privileges and Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment rendered the Bill of Rights binding upon the States:
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"These eight articles I have shown never were limitations on the power of the States, until made so by the Fourteenth Amendment.  The words of that Amendment, 'no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,' are an express prohibition upon every State of the Union."
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The Second Amendment was counted among those rights of the citizens of the United States.  
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(As an aside, the fact that the conservative court that issued the Presser decision had twisted the 14th Amendment into something far narrower than its author intended -- shows that ultraconservative judges are the ones with the activist agenda, much moreso than "liberal judges.")
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Today, far right legal theorists -- like those favored by the Bush Administration -- want to tear down the Bill of Rights as it applies to states.  When you realize that most gun bans and gun restrictions come from the state and local level, the ascendance of "conservative" judicial theory within the federal judiciary would effectively spell the end of your Second Amendment rights.
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Dangers to our Second Amendment rights have been justified by other legal tricks and ruses routinely advocated by "conservative judges."  In Robertson v. Baldwin (1897), the court used the fact that "protecting public morals" has been used to justify exemptions to the First Amendment, to itself justify encroachments upon the Second:
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"Thus, the freedom of speech and of the press (article 1) does not permit the publication of libels, blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications injurious to public morals or private reputation; the right of the people to keep and bear arms (article 2) is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons..."
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In other words, be careful what you ask for.  If you want to see judges appointed who will declare arbitrary and poorly founded reasons to curtail freedom of the press, those same judges will likely devise poorly founded excuses to curtail your gun rights.
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The Second Amendment's Humanistic Worldview
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Finally, it's worth pointing out that the Second Amendment is consistent with a liberal, humanistic vision of human nature.
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It might seem, at first, that the right to own firearms is necessary because of the evil element in society, thus an emphasis on the dark side of human nature.
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However, what the Second Amendment actually assumes is that the evil element is a small minority.  It assumes, much to the contrary, that the great majority of Americans can be trusted to own deadly weapons and use them responsibility.  
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In other words, the Second Amendment assumes the inherent goodness of the vast majority of human beings -- a thoroughly humanistic worldview.
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Moreover, it's easy to conclude that if the Founders felt that the great majority of citizens could be trusted to own deadly force, then those same citizens can likewise be trusted to make every other life decision responsibly, whether what books to read, whom to sleep with, or even using marijuana.  If we can be trusted with deadly weapons, it follows that we can be trusted with liberties of less gravity as well.
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The greatest statement in favor of human freedom of choice may be -- of all things -- the Second Amendment.
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