The design purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect the people from government impositions. Do you think that people who wrote it, with that purpose in their minds, were worried that the State would ban their own State Police from carrying firearms, and that's what they should prevent? How would that even look like - the Government will issue an edict that no Government employee is allowed to carry firearms, even in law enforcement, but the Courts would come in and say - no-no-no, your police has the right to bear arms! So you must have the armed police, whether you want it or not!
This sounds completely contrary to what in practice every government on Earth does. Of course the State can arm their agents, if they want to - you don't need to specially mention it as a fundamental right, as you don't need to specially mention they are allowed to breathe or eat - that's how it always happens. What doesn't always happen and needs special protection - is the right of the citizens which are not government agents, and thus the government - which always has a lot of armed people in their employ - can easily walk all over them. To mitigate it somewhat was the exact purpose of the Bill of Rights.
The overriding concern of the constitution is that the federal government not tromp all over the rights of the States. It would not be reasonable for the constitution to have provisions to secure the right of the federal government to arm its police, but it does seem reasonable to me to have provisions to ensure that the federal government does not interfere with the right of the several States to arm their police.
However, multiple states specify in their constitutions who comprises their militias. In Virginia, for example, it is "composed of the body of the people." In Illinois, "The State militia consists of all able-bodied persons
residing in the State except those exempted by law." Given such constitutional provisions, it seems unreasonable to think that police were in view when speaking of a "well-regulated militia."
The policing and military functions were, because large permanent standing forces for internal and external security which would inevitably become closed societies with interests divergent from the public were the threat the 2A was to protect against, by providing an alternative that would make them unnecessary.
At the time of the constitution most policing was done by a local sheriff that was elected and did not really have a "dept", the sheriff would enlist local volunteers if there needed to be a police action that required more than him and a single deputy.
For this reason the ability to local community members to be armed was required as they needed to defend themselves as well as the local community when called upon by the sheriff.
I'm not sure why you replied to me, but to be more clear:
I'm saying that the second-amendment-means-collective-rights people are not concerned with what the second amendment said or with what it was meant to do. I am saying that their concern is preventing people from having guns, and their criteria for making an argument are, first, can this argument be used to prevent people from having guns, and, second, can it be connected -- however tenuously -- to the raw text of the second amendment. The goal is repeal-through-motivated-interpretation.
This sounds completely contrary to what in practice every government on Earth does. Of course the State can arm their agents, if they want to - you don't need to specially mention it as a fundamental right, as you don't need to specially mention they are allowed to breathe or eat - that's how it always happens. What doesn't always happen and needs special protection - is the right of the citizens which are not government agents, and thus the government - which always has a lot of armed people in their employ - can easily walk all over them. To mitigate it somewhat was the exact purpose of the Bill of Rights.