Posted on 07/06/2007 4:34:01 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
The Second Amendment secures a right of individuals generally, not a right of States or a right restricted to persons serving in militias.
"As explained below, the text of the Second Amendment points to a personal right of individuals: A "right of the people" is ordinarily and most naturally a right of individuals, not of a State and not merely of those serving the State as militiamen...
The Second Amendment's recognition of a "right" that belongs to "the people" indicates a right of individuals. The word "right," standing by itself in the Constitution, is clear. Although in some contexts entities other than individuals are said to have "rights," (37) the Constitution itself does not use the word "right" in this manner. Setting aside the Second Amendment, not once does the Constitution confer a "right" on any governmental entity, state or federal. Nor does it confer any "right" restricted to persons in governmental service, such as members of an organized military unit. In addition to its various references to a "right of the people" discussed below, the Constitution in the Sixth Amendment secures "right[s]" to an accused person, and in the Seventh secures a person's "right" to a jury trial in civil cases. (38) By contrast, governments, whether state or federal, have in the Constitution only "powers" or "authority." (39) It would be a marked anomaly if "right" in the Second Amendment departed from such uniform usage throughout the Constitution.
In any event, any possible doubt vanishes when "right" is conjoined with "the people," as it is in the Second Amendment. Such a right belongs to individuals: The "people" are not a "State," nor are they identical with the "Militia." Indeed, the Second Amendment distinctly uses all three of these terms, yet it secures a "right" only to the "people." The phrase "the right of the people" appears two other times in the Bill of Rights, and both times refers to a personal right, which belongs to individuals. The First Amendment secures "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," and the Fourth safeguards "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." In addition, the Ninth Amendment refers to "rights . . . retained by the people." We see no reason to read the phrase in the Second Amendment to mean something other than what it plainly means in these neighboring and contemporaneous amendments..."
"Eight years ago, I got into an argument with a nonlawyer acquaintance about the Second Amendment. The Amendment, this person fervently announced, clearly protects an individual right. Not so, I argued to him, thinking him to be something of a blowhard and even a bit of a kook.
Three years ago, I discovered, to my surprise and mild chagrin, that this supposed kook was entirely right. In preparing to teach a law school seminar on firearms regulation (one of the only about half a dozen such classes that I know of at U.S. law schools), I found that the historical evidence -- much of which I set forth verbatim in the Appendix -- overwhelmingly points to one and only one conclusion: The Second Amendment does indeed secure an individual right to keep and bear arms.
1. The Text of the Amendment Refers to an Individual Right
The Second Amendment, like the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, refers to a "right of the people," not a right of the states or a right of the National Guard. The First Amendment guarantees the people's right to assemble; the Fourth Amendment protects the people's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures; the Ninth Amendment refers to the people's unenumerated rights. 1 These rights are clearly individual -- they protect "the right of the people" by protecting the right of each person. This strongly suggests that the similarly-worded Second Amendment likewise secures an individual right..."
Excerpts from: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V TIMOTHY JOE EMERSON
"... We conclude that Miller does not support the government's collective rights or sophisticated collective rights approach to the Second Amendment. Indeed, to the extent that Miller sheds light on the matter it cuts against the government's position. Nor does the government cite any other authority binding on this panel which mandates acceptance of its position in this respect.(21) However, we do not proceed on the assumption that Miller actually accepted an individual rights, as opposed to a collective or sophisticated collective rights, interpretation of the Second Amendment. Thus, Miller itself does not resolve that issue.(22) We turn, therefore, to an analysis of history and wording of the Second Amendment for guidance. In undertaking this analysis, we are mindful that almost all of our sister circuits have rejected any individual rights view of the Second Amendment. However, it respectfully appears to us that all or almost all of these opinions seem to have done so either on the erroneous assumption that Miller resolved that issue or without sufficient articulated examination of the history and text of the Second Amendment...
People ... There is no evidence in the text of the Second Amendment, or any other part of the Constitution, that the words "the people" have a different connotation within the Second Amendment than when employed elsewhere in the Constitution. In fact, the text of the Constitution, as a whole, strongly suggests that the words "the people" have precisely the same meaning within the Second Amendment as without. And, as used throughout the Constitution, "the people" have "rights" and "powers," but federal and state governments only have "powers" or "authority", never "rights."(24) Moreover, the Constitution's text likewise recognizes not only the difference between the "militia" and "the people" but also between the "militia" which has not been "call[ed] forth" and "the militia, when in actual service..."
Several other Supreme Court opinions speak of the Second Amendment in a manner plainly indicating that the right which it secures to "the people" is an individual or personal, not a collective or quasi-collective, right in the same sense that the rights secured to "the people" in the First and Fourth Amendments, and the rights secured by the other provisions of the first eight amendments, are individual or personal, and not collective or quasi-collective, rights...
It appears clear that "the people," as used in the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, refers to individual Americans.
Bear Arms Proponents of the states' rights and sophisticated collective rights models argue that the phrase "bear arms" only applies to a member of the militia carrying weapons during actual militia service. Champions of the individual rights model opine that "bear arms" refers to any carrying of weapons, whether by a soldier or a civilian. There is no question that the phrase "bear arms" may be used to refer to the carrying of arms by a soldier or militiaman. The issue is whether "bear arms" was also commonly used to refer to the carrying of arms by a civilian..."
However, there are numerous instances of the phrase "bear arms" being used to describe a civilian's carrying of arms. Early constitutional provisions or declarations of rights in at least some ten different states speak of the right of the "people" [or "citizen" or "citizens"] "to bear arms in defense of themselves [or "himself"] and the state," or equivalent words, thus indisputably reflecting that under common usage "bear arms" was in no sense restricted to bearing arms in military service.(29) And such provisions were enforced on the basis that the right to bear arms was not restricted to bearing arms during actual military service. See Bliss v. Commonwealth, 13 Am. Dec. 251, 12 Ky. 90 (Ky. 1822).
We also note that a minority of the delegates to the Pennsylvania ratification convention proposed the following amendment to the Constitution:
That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil powers.2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 623-24 (Merill Jensen ed., 1976). This is yet another example of "bear arms" being used to refer to the carrying of arms by civilians for non-military purposes. Also revealing is a bill drafted by Thomas Jefferson and proposed to the Virginia legislature by James Madison (the author of the Second Amendment) on October 31, 1785, that would impose penalties upon those who violated hunting laws if they "shall bear a gun out of his [the violator's] inclosed ground, unless whilst performing military duty." 2 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 443-44 (J.P. Boyd, ed. 1950). A similar indication that "bear arms" was a general description of the carrying of arms by anyone is found in the 1828 edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language; where the third definition of bear reads: "[t]o wear; to bear as a mark of authority or distinction, as, to bear a sword, a badge, a name; to bear arms in a coat."
We conclude that the phrase "bear arms" refers generally to the carrying or wearing of arms. It is certainly proper to use the phrase in reference to the carrying or wearing of arms by a soldier or militiaman; thus, the context in which "bear arms" appears may indicate that it refers to a military situation, e.g. the conscientious objector clauses cited by amici supporting the government. However, amici's argument that "bear arms" was exclusively, or even usually, used to only refer to the carrying or wearing of arms by a soldier or militiaman must be rejected.(30) The appearance of "bear Arms" in the Second Amendment accords fully with the plain meaning of the subject of the substantive guarantee, "the people," and offers no support for the proposition that the Second Amendment applies only during periods of actual military service or only to those who are members of a select militia. Finally, our view of "bear arms" as used in the Second Amendment appears to be the same as that expressed in the dissenting opinion of Justice Ginsburg (joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia and Souter) in Muscarello v. United States, 118 S.Ct. 1911, 1921 (1998); viz:
"Surely a most familiar meaning [of carrying a firearm] is, as the Constitution's Second Amendment ("keep and bear Arms") (emphasis added) and Black's Law Dictionary, at 214, indicate: "wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person."
Keep . . . Arms Neither the government nor amici argue that "keep . . . Arms" commands a military connotation.(31) The plain meaning of the right of the people to keep arms is that it is an individual, rather than a collective, right and is not limited to keeping arms while engaged in active military service or as a member of a select militia such as the National Guard.
Substantive Guarantee as a Whole Taken as a whole, the text of the Second Amendment's substantive guarantee is not suggestive of a collective rights or sophisticated collective rights interpretation, and the implausibility of either such interpretation is enhanced by consideration of the guarantee's placement within the Bill of Rights and the wording of the other articles thereof and of the original Constitution as a whole.
Effect of Preamble We turn now to the Second Amendment's preamble: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." And, we ask ourselves whether this preamble suffices to mandate what would be an otherwise implausible collective rights or sophisticated collective rights interpretation of the amendment. We conclude that it does not..."
"... The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms therefore, is a right of the individual citizen to privately possess and carry in a peaceful manner firearms and similar arms. Such an "individual rights" interpretation is in full accord with the history of the right to keep and bear arms, as previously discussed. It is moreover in accord with contemporaneous statements and formulations of the right by such founders of this nation as Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams, and accurately reflects the majority of the proposals which led up to the Bill of Rights itself. A number of state constitutions, adopted prior to or contemporaneously with the federal Constitution and Bill of Rights, similarly provided for a right of the people to keep and bear arms. If in fact this language creates a right protecting the states only, there might be a reason for it to be inserted in the federal Constitution but no reason for it to be inserted in state constitutions. State bills of rights necessarily protect only against action by the state, and by definition a state cannot infringe its own rights; to attempt to protect a right belonging to the state by inserting it in a limitation of the state's own powers would create an absurdity. The fact that the contemporaries of the framers did insert these words into several state constitutions would indicate clearly that they viewed the right as belonging to the individual citizen, thereby making it a right which could be infringed either by state or federal government and which must be protected against infringement by both.
Finally, the individual rights interpretation gives full meaning to the words chosen by the first Congress to reflect the right to keep and bear arms. The framers of the Bill of Rights consistently used the words "right of the people" to reflect individual rights — as when these words were used to recognize the "right of the people" to peaceably assemble, and the "right of the people" against unreasonable searches and seizures. They distinguished between the rights of the people and of the state in the Tenth Amendment. As discussed earlier, the "militia" itself referred to a concept of a universally armed people, not to any specifically organized unit. When the framers referred to the equivalent of our National Guard, they uniformly used the term "select militia" and distinguished this from "militia". Indeed, the debates over the Constitution constantly referred to the organized militia units as a threat to freedom comparable to that of a standing army, and stressed that such organized units did not constituted, and indeed were philosophically opposed to, the concept of a militia...
The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner..."
And, at the time, they intended it to apply only to white, male citizens, 18-45 years of age. The second amendment didn't protect women, non-whites, children, or non-citizens.
"How can it suddenly mean a state right when used in the Second?"
It doesn't. The article refers to a "collective right", meaning those in a Militia, collectively, have their RKBA protected from federal infringement.
"Everywhere else in the Constitution and Bill of Rights where the words "the people" is used, it is meant as an individual right"
No, "the people" refer to a particular group. Please see my post #47.
Sophistry and pretzel logic. There is no such thing as a “collective right” and without that your argument collapses in a heap.
Unambiguous and irrelevant.
The question isn't whether or not people have the individual right. They do. The debate is whether or not the second amendment protects that individual right. It doesn't (according to the majority of lower federal court opinions.
State constitutions protect the individual RKBA -- which is why gun laws vary from state to state.
Didn't you ever think that it was odd that concealed carry is protected in State A but not State B? I mean, if the second amendment protected that right in in State A, certainly it would be unconstitutional not to protect it in State B.
If you have another explanation, I'd like to hear it. Let me get some popcorn first.
Regarding the collective right, those on the left always interpret it to mean the right of the state (usually via the National Guard or the military), not a right of any collection of citizens. That is what I cannot understand: how do these people understand "the people" in the First Amendment to mean absolutely an individual right, but when "the people" is used in the second, it now means a state right?
THAT IS the argument! That these myriad restrictions on gun rights ARE unconstitutional!
B) “The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
In your opinion, "A" and "B" above mean exactly the same thing. The extra words in "A" were added because the Founding Fathers thought they looked cool.
If this logic held even a drop of water then Roe v. Wade would be perfectly Constitutional and there would be no need for a Supreme Court in the first place.
When you stop choking on your popcorn sophistry get back to me.
Now you're just making things up.
by J. Neil Schulman
If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right ? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution ?
That was the question I asked A.C. Brocki, editorial coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers -- who himself had been recommended to me as the foremost expert on English usage in the Los Angeles school system. Mr. Brocki told me to get in touch with Roy Copperud, a retired professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and the author of "American Usage and Style: The Consensus."
A little research lent support to Brocki's opinion of Professor Copperud's expertise.
Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three decades before embarking on a a distinguished 17-year career teaching journalism at USC. Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a column dealing with the professional aspects of journalism for "Editor and Publisher", a weekly magazine focusing on the journalism field.
He's on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam Webster's Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert. Copperud's fifth book on usage, "American Usage and Style: The Consensus," has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American Publisher's Humanities Award.
That sounds like an expert to me.
After a brief telephone call to Professor Copperud in which I introduced myself but did not give him any indication of why I was interested, I sent the following letter:
"I am writing you to ask you for your professional opinion as an expert in English usage, to analyze the text of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and extract the intent from the text.
"The text of the Second Amendment is, 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
"The debate over this amendment has been whether the first part of the sentence, 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State', is a restrictive clause or a subordinate clause, with respect to the independent clause containing the subject of the sentence, 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
"I would request that your analysis of this sentence not take into consideration issues of political impact or public policy, but be restricted entirely to a linguistic analysis of its meaning and intent. Further, since your professional analysis will likely become part of litigation regarding the consequences of the Second Amendment, I ask that whatever analysis you make be a professional opinion that you would be willing to stand behind with your reputation, and even be willing to testify under oath to support, if necessary."
My letter framed several questions about the test of the Second Amendment, then concluded:
"I realize that I am asking you to take on a major responsibility and task with this letter. I am doing so because, as a citizen, I believe it is vitally important to extract the actual meaning of the Second Amendment. While I ask that your analysis not be affected by the political importance of its results, I ask that you do this because of that importance."
After several more letters and phone calls, in which we discussed terms for his doing such an analysis, but in which we never discussed either of our opinions regarding the Second Amendment, gun control, or any other political subject, Professor Copperud sent me the follow analysis (into which I have inserted my questions for the sake of clarity):
[Copperud:] "The words 'A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,' contrary to the interpretation cited in your letter of July 26, 1991, constitutes a present participle, rather than a clause. It is used as an adjective, modifying 'militia,' which is followed by the main clause of the sentence (subject 'the right', verb 'shall'). The to keep and bear arms is asserted as an essential for maintaining a militia.
"In reply to your numbered questions:
[Schulman:] "(1) Can the sentence be interpreted to grant the right to keep and bear arms solely to 'a well-regulated militia'?"
[Copperud:] "(1) The sentence does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms, nor does it state or imply possession of the right elsewhere or by others than the people; it simply makes a positive statement with respect to a right of the people."
[Schulman:] "(2) Is 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms' granted by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms, and merely state that such right 'shall not be infringed'?"
[Copperud:] "(2) The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia."
[Schulman:] "(3) Is the right of the people to keep and bear arms conditioned upon whether or not a well regulated militia, is, in fact necessary to the security of a free State, and if that condition is not existing, is the statement 'the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed' null and void?"
[Copperud:] "(3) No such condition is expressed or implied. The right to keep and bear arms is not said by the amendment to depend on the existence of a militia. No condition is stated or implied as to the relation of the right to keep and bear arms and to the necessity of a well-regulated militia as a requisite to the security of a free state. The right to keep and bear arms is deemed unconditional by the entire sentence."
[Schulman:] "(4) Does the clause 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,' grant a right to the government to place conditions on the 'right of the people to keep and bear arms,' or is such right deemed unconditional by the meaning of the entire sentence?"
[Copperud:] "(4) The right is assumed to exist and to be unconditional, as previously stated. It is invoked here specifically for the sake of the militia."
[Schulman:] "(5) Which of the following does the phrase 'well-regulated militia' mean: 'well-equipped', 'well-organized,' 'well-drilled,' 'well-educated,' or 'subject to regulations of a superior authority'?" [Copperud:] "(5) The phrase means 'subject to regulations of a superior authority;' this accords with the desire of the writers for civilian control over the military."
[Schulman:] "(6) (If at all possible, I would ask you to take account the changed meanings of words, or usage, since that sentence was written 200 years ago, but not take into account historical interpretations of the intents of the authors, unless those issues can be clearly separated."
[Copperud:] "To the best of my knowledge, there has been no change in the meaning of words or in usage that would affect the meaning of the amendment. If it were written today, it might be put: "Since a well-regulated militia is necessary tot he security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.'
[Schulman:] "As a 'scientific control' on this analysis, I would also appreciate it if you could compare your analysis of the text of the Second Amendment to the following sentence,
"A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.'
"My questions for the usage analysis of this sentence would be,
"(1) Is the grammatical structure and usage of this sentence and the way the words modify each other, identical to the Second Amendment's sentence?; and
"(2) Could this sentence be interpreted to restrict 'the right of the people to keep and read Books' _only_ to 'a well-educated electorate' -- for example, registered voters with a high-school diploma?"
[Copperud:] "(1) Your 'scientific control' sentence precisely parallels the amendment in grammatical structure.
"(2) There is nothing in your sentence that either indicates or implies the possibility of a restricted interpretation."
Professor Copperud had only one additional comment, which he placed in his cover letter: "With well-known human curiosity, I made some speculative efforts to decide how the material might be used, but was unable to reach any conclusion."
So now we have been told by one of the top experts on American usage what many knew all along: the Constitution of the United States unconditionally protects the people's right to keep and bear arms, forbidding all governments formed under the Constitution from abridging that right.
As I write this, the attempted coup against constitutional government in the Soviet Union has failed, apparently because the will of the people in that part of the world to be free from capricious tyranny is stronger than the old guard's desire to maintain a monopoly on dictatorial power.
And here in the United States, elected lawmakers, judges, and appointed officials who are pledged to defend the Constitution of the United States ignore, marginalize, or prevaricate about the Second Amendment routinely. American citizens are put in American prisons for carrying arms, owning arms of forbidden sorts, or failing to satisfy bureaucratic requirements regarding the owning and carrying of firearms -- all of which is an abridgement of the unconditional right of the people to keep and bear arms, guaranteed by the Constitution.
And even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), staunch defender of the rest of the Bill of Rights, stands by and does nothing.
it seems it is up to those who believe in the right to keep and bear arms to preserve that right. no one else will. No one else can. Will we beg our elected representatives not to take away our rights, and continue regarding them as representing us if they do? Will we continue obeying judges who decide that the Second Amendment doesn't mean what it says it means but means whatever they say it means in their Orwellian doublespeak ?
Or will be simply keep and bear the arms of our choice, as the Constitution of the United States promises us we can, and pledge that we will defend that promise with our lives, our fortuned, and our sacred honor ?
(C) 1991 by The New Gun Week and Second Amendment Foundation. Informational reproduction of the entire article is hereby authorized provided the author, The New Gun Week and Second Amendment Foundation are credited. All other rights reserved.
About the Author
J. Neil Schulman is the award-winning author of novels endorsed by Anthony Burgess and Nobel-economist Milton Friedman, and writer of the CBS "Twilight Zone" episode in which a time-traveling historian prevents the JFK assassination. He's also the founder and president of SoftServ Publishing, the first publishing company to distribute "paperless books" via personal computers and modems.
Most recently, Schulman has founded the Committee to Enforce the Second Amendment (CESA), through which he intends to see the individual's right to keep and bear arms recognized as a constitutional protection equal to those afforded in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth amendments.
Well, technically, an individual right that is protected if you are part of a particular group. For example, Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution reads: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states ..."
The right to vote for members of the House was only protected for a particular group -- white, male, citizen landowners. Not all persons.
Who are these phantasms you refer to as "they?" Clearly the following Founders didn't intend what you claim.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." ~Thomas Jefferson, 1776"What is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." ~George Mason, 1788
"The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." ~Samuel Adams, 1788
"The militia is our ultimate safety. We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed." ~Patrick Henry
“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.” Richard Henry Lee. Letter from a Federal Farmer to the Republic. Letter XVIII
Refer us to where the Constitution spells that out and then expain how today's courts view that notion by Constitutional rulings.
No, "A" just gives further explanation, however "B" is the key phrase. "...the right of the people..."
The people are telling the government that this (keeping and bearing arms) is the right of the people and government is not granted the power to infringe on it.
Yes. But at the time it was written, "the people" did not refer to all persons.
"the original meaning is how it should be interpreted"
I agree. If the Founders meant everyone, they would have said "all persons" or at least "all citizens". They didn't. They meant "a particular group" so they used the phrase "the people". (Just as they did in Article I, Section 2).
Granted, the definition of the group has changed over time. It still doesn't mean "all persons".
"Regarding the collective right, those on the left always interpret it to mean the right of the state (usually via the National Guard or the military), not a right of any collection of citizens."
Here's how the second amendment is read by those having a "collective right" interpretation:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people individuals in well regulated Militias to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed (by the federal government).”
"how do these people understand "the people" in the First Amendment to mean absolutely an individual right"
The first amendment protects "the right of the people peaceably to assemble", but that is an individual right only used when assembling as a group. The courts have ruled that permits may be required -- the permit only protects a particular group.
I don't know what you're referring to.
Well, if THAT IS the argument, then it's old, outdated, and refuted many times over.
In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875), the U.S. Supremne Court ruled that the second amendment "has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government." In other words, the second amendment doesn't apply to the states -- states are only restricted by their state constitution.
What’s missing in all this and in most cases like this is that it is ignored that the Constitution was the document that granted certain but limited rights to the government from the people, reserving all natural rights to the people themselves.
What allows for the current upside-down posture of government versus the people is that slowly and incrementally, as individual members of the people as a whole die and then weaker, more pliable ones raise up to take their place is that government, being an entity in perpetuity gains a proportionate amount of power with every passing generation.
Current restrictions on what once were accepted, guaranteed and unfettered rights are now viewed by the average citizen who is too personally busy just living to get caught up in esoteric discussions, as a list of privileges granted by the good offices of their “appointed” betters (leaders).
Only a few are recognized as pivotal or essential to keep this society from turning into the proverbial ant farm; gun control as it regards gun posession is one along with being able to speak aloud one’s opinion or his version of the truth.
Both are under relentless and wholesale attack.
The communitarian socialists among us insist it doesn't.
They say the 2nd refers to a "collective right", meaning those in a Militia, collectively, have their RKBA protected from only federal infringement, and that States have the power to ignore our inalienable rights.
Interesting interpretation. Wasn't the Constitution later amended to extend the rights to the other groups (non-whites, women)?
Communitarian socialists simply deny that the 14th 'incorporated' our rights to arms within the term "life, liberty, or property".
Regarding the collective right, those on the left always interpret it to mean the right of the state - That is what I cannot understand: how do these people understand "the people" in the First Amendment to mean absolutely an individual right, but when "the people" is used in the second, it now means a state right?
To these socialists, people in groups can use majority rule to 'regulate' [read infringe/prohibit] any right, - virtually out of existence.
No amendments needed to prohibit.
The second amendment is read by socialistic communitarians who have a "collective right" interpretation as meaning:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right to keep and bear Arms of only the people enrolled in those well regulated Militias shall not be infringed (by the federal government).
All other people are decreed to be defenseless at the whim of the States.
Let’s agree to disagree.
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