<P> The next day, August 25, the Senate received the amendment from the House and entered it into the Senate Journal . However, the Senate scribe added a comma before "shall not be infringed" and changed the semicolon separating that phrase from the religious exemption portion to a comma: </P> <P> A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person . </P> <P> By this time, the proposed right to keep and bear arms was in a separate amendment, instead of being in a single amendment together with other proposed rights such as the due process right . As a Representative explained, this change allowed each amendment to "be passed upon distinctly by the States ." On September 4, the Senate voted to change the language of the Second Amendment by removing the definition of militia, and striking the conscientious objector clause: </P> <P> A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed . </P>

Text of the second amendment to the us constitution