I was responding to the question "Can anyone now think of a reason why a number of Supreme Court Justices are not now liable for impeachment for a breach of their oath of office ...?" by pointing out that the "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is an undefined series of words, trying to show that the thing in regard to which they are accused of breaching their oath is undefined and needs better definition before we can accuse anyone of a breach in regard to it.
You wrote "virtually total ban on law-abiding citizens carrying arms outside the home in New Jersey" but I thought the case at hand was about self defense carry outside the home in New Jersey, which is not quite the same thing.
What do you think the people who fired the "shot heard round the world" were thinking when they denied to government the authority to "infringe" the right to keep and bear arms?
As I recall, they were thinking the government was coming to take the ordnance, munitions etc. held in their armory. I don't recall that they were thinking the government was coming to take anything from their homes, their houses.
Please recall that the militia gathered outside Boston in April of 1775 were fighting their own government and their own regular army. The fighting started with government attempts to confiscate arms.
I didn't know the case at hand was about confiscation beyond any confiscation that took place when the defendant was arrested.
My turn for questions: What is the scope-extent-definition of the words "the right of the people to bear arms"? Does one of the people who happens to be standing on the gallows awaiting execution have the right to keep and bear arms? Does someone on another's property have the right to keep and bear arms against the wishes of the property owner? Is a five year old one of the people with the right to keep and bear arms?
Regarding whatever your answers are, how do we know so just from the words "the right of the people to keep and bear arms"?
The citizens of Boston were required to submit to having their personal arms housed in a government controlled armory and they were subject to search for smuggling weapons on departing the city.
You seem to be saying that, because we don't know everything about what the Second Amendment means, we then know NOTHING about what it means.
Law-abiding people in Arizona now require no government permit to carry whether open or concealed. Is there blood running in the streets?
The burden is completely on you to make the case that the right, as exercised in Arizona, is not fully protected by the Second Amendment. We are not a nation of limited rights. We are a nation of limited government.
It's a very Soviet idea to presume that everything that is not permitted is prohibited. That is not what our Founders intended. Rather they intended that whatever was not prohibited was permitted. Why do you think otherwise?
From whence comes the federal regulation infringing the right to possess a short-barreled shotgun? What clause in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to control this?