Because it is my RIGHT to own one, given to me as a private right for defense by God and the 2nd Amendment, as the intention of the framers who wrote it.
The "well regula[tion]" of the militia set forth in the Second Amendment was apart from that control over the militia exercised by Congress and the President, which extended only to that part of the militia called into actual service of the Union. Thus, "well regula[tion]" referred to something else. Since the fundamental purpose of the militia was to serve as a check upon a standing army, it would seem the words "well regulated" referred to the necessity that the armed citizens making up the militia(s) have the level of equipment and training necessary to be an effective and formidable check upon the national government's standing army.
This view is confirmed by Alexander Hamilton's observation, in The Federalist, No. 29, regarding the people's militias ability to be a match for a standing army: " . . . but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights . . . ."
as well in the following comments of other founding fathers and contemporaries discussing the 2nd Amendment:
Noah Webster put it in a pamphlet urging ratification of the Constitution, "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe."
George Mason remarked to his Virginia delegates regarding the colonies' recent experience with Britain, in which the Monarch's goal had been "to disarm the people; that [that] . . . was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." He also questioned: ""I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
Tench Coxe, an ally and correspondent of James Madison, described the Second Amendment's overriding goal as a check upon the national government's standing army in ‘Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym ‘A Pennsylvanian' in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1: "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." He further stated in The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788: ""Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail said: "...if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?"
Richard Henry Lee in The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788 stated: "Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."
Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith in 1787: "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
James Madison to Congress: "The right of the people to keep and bear ... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country ..."
Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, stated during floor debate over the Second Amendment: "What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
Patrick Henry during the Debates in the Several State Conventions: "Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
Samuel Adams: "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "
Thus, the well regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state was a militia that might someday fight against a standing army raised and supported by a tyrannical national government.
It is an absolute truism that law-abiding, armed citizens pose no threat to other law-abiding citizens. The Framers' writings show they also believed this. As we have seen, the Framers understood that "well regulated" militias, that is, armed citizens, ready to form militias that would be well trained, self-regulated and disciplined, would pose no threat to their fellow citizens, but would, indeed, help to "insure domestic Tranquility" and "provide for the common defense."
And that is why I (and all other Americans who are not felons or mentally incompetent) can have and NEED an AR15 rifle (or any other weapon), with a big magazine if we should so desire to own one! It is also why the 2nd Amendment says that this right SHALL NOT be infringed. The government has absolutely no right to infringe upon my right to own it! So, when states & federal government ban certain guns/ammo, they are violating my 2nd Amendment right. The overriding purpose and object of the Bill of Rights was to serve as "further guards for private rights." In that regard, the first ten amendments to the Constitution were designed to be a series of "shall nots," telling the new national government again, in no uncertain terms, where it could not tread. In other words...my right to own and bear arms to match a standing army is not a constitutional right, it is a PRIVATE right, which so happened to be reiterated and strengthened by an amendment to the Constitution, just so it would be absolutely clear to any future government as to what they cannot fool with.
Other Resources:
Right To Keep and Bear Arms
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