Chief Justice Warren Burger (appointed by Nixon) had a good take on all this. Yep, a fraud. Clinton got fairly criticised over his definition of 'is' nonsense but Wayne & the NRA went to town over a comma.
I don't believe that to be a good enough reason to continue registering guns. Most gun crimes are committed with un-owned guns and are not registered. The detriments to registration far outweigh the benefits.
What morlibons don't understand is that the constitution does not grant individual rights, rather it tells govt what rights they can't take away from the individual. ---Individual rights are naturally given. ----The only reason that the Bill of Rights was incorporated was that certain founders believed that govt would try to interpret at some point in the future that individuals didn't have naturally given rights (like keep and bear arms) and would try to infringe on personal freedom. The founders were very smart. They could see what might happen in the future. Even today, people attempt to take away individual rights by trying to twist the words of the founders. ----Constitution limits govt power. Individual freedom is a given and needs no document to support it.