[berserker]

Link to court opinion Elred v. Ashcroft.

[BenLurkin]

I dis-agree that Ginsburg's decision ignores the prefatory language. She rather declined to accept plaintiff's assertions as to how it should be applied as a practical matter. The unspoken point in the Constitution is that people will be more likely to share their inventions if they can expect to profit from them.

[Sir Gawain]

On the other hand, if the prefatory language can basically be ignored, the right would seem to be an individual one.

What BS. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

[FreeTally]

Horse poop.

The ruling has zero affect on the 2nd Amendment or the RKABA. The author's opinion is an absurd conclusion.

[wcbtinman]

The author would have much more credibility if the 2nd Amendment were correctly quoted.

There is only one comma in the the original Constitution.

It makes a difference to the context.

[Nephi]

My interpretation of the second amendment, before it was interpreted for me, was that the people regulated the militia by being armed.

[Puppage]

WE, are the militia. You & me..THE PEOPLE. Who made up the militia? Everyday people...with their OWN guns, they WERE NOT given to them. And, they drilled on Town Greens, not military installations. When they say militia, they say WE THE PEOPLE. PERIOD.

Funny, but WHY are ALL the amendments that make up the Bill of Rights of, for & by The People...EXCEPT THE 2ND AMENDMENT? Why not the 5th, the 1st? Hmm?

[Lizard_King]

While I believe the author's conclusion about the 2nd amendment is absurd, the copyright question is far more important than it would seem on the surface to most people.

I believe Lawrence Lessig has one of the most comprehensive explanations of the current (messed up) state of copyright law here:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html

I highly recommend the mp3 version as it is much more enjoyable.

[ZULU]

"Put another way, does the right declared by the Amendment belong only to the "militia" (or the People as a whole), as the prefatory language suggests? Or does it belong to individuals, as the rest of the Amendment, standing alone, could be read to imply?"

Since in the view of the FOunding Fathers "the militia" was all able bodied males capable of bearing arms, this is an irrelevancy except in the minds of liberal left-wing revisionists who are apparently always intent upon misinterpreting and redefining original intent.

[Redbob]

There's no comparison here.

The "prefatory language" in the commerce clause explicitly states what the patent protection is intended to do, using the preposition "to", while the Second Amendment's "prefatory statement" begins with the indefinite article "a".
In the first case, the meaning of the sentence absolutely depends on the prefatory clause - without it, there'd be no sentence! - while in the case of the Second Amendment, the meaning is clear without reference to the prefatory clause at all.

[Plutarch]

Supreme Court members bent on abolishing the RKBA will not be hampered by Eldred, logic, grammar, history, custom, legal reasoning, common sense, statistics nor the clear intent of the Founders.