Y’all might be interested in this
From Mike Stollenwerk of opencarry.org
The press is not reporting the authorities correctly.
The SU Supreme Court has repeatedly spoke to the Second Amendment as securing an individual right to bear arms.
In modern times: U.S. v. Miller (appearing to hold that if an arm was in common use and suitable for militia duty it was exempt from federal tax stamp requirements; United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez & Johnson v. Eisentrager (analogizing to the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment as belonging to the people like all the other rights in there Bill of Rights).
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Ginsberg and Stevens **concurred** in the result of United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990) (analogizing that the meaning of the term “people” in the 4th Amendment to was like that of the Second Amendment - Scalia and Kennedy joined the opinion writing this text;
See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=494&page=259:
SNIP
The Fourth Amendment provides:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
That text, by contrast with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, extends its reach only to “the people.” Contrary to the suggestion of amici curiae that the Framers used this phrase “simply to avoid [an] awkward rhetorical redundancy,” Brief for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as Amici Curiae 12, n. 4, “the people” seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by “the people of the United States.” The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to “the people.” See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 (”Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble”) (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 (”The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States”) (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that “the people” protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.
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The Supreme Court said the same thing earlier in Johnson_v._Eisentrager, see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=339&page=763:
SNIP
If the Fifth Amendment confers its rights on all the world except Americans engaged in defending it, the same must be true of the companion civil-rights Amendments, for none of them is limited by its express terms, territorially or as to persons. Such a construction would mean that during military occupation irreconcilable enemy elements, guerrilla fighters, and “werewolves” could require the American Judiciary to assure them freedoms of speech, press, and assembly as in the First Amendment, right to bear arms as in the Second, security against “unreasonable” searches and seizures as in the Fourth, as well as rights to jury trial as in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
“The SU Supreme Court has repeatedly spoke to the Second Amendment as securing an individual right to bear arms.
In modern times: U.S. v. Miller (appearing to hold that if an arm was in common use and suitable for militia duty it was exempt from federal tax stamp requirements;”
The very fact that *Miller* was decided on the merits means a LOT. The USSC doesn’t like to decide cases, especially political issue cases, and denies cert. in something like 99% of all filings. The Court could easily have said, “Miller failed to state a claim, cert. denied.” This would be identical to the Silviera v. Lockyer case, in which the 9th Circus said that the 2nd isn’t about individual rights, therefore no individual can bring a case. No, in Miller the case was decided with the assumption that Miller had a 2nd Amendment RKBA, and the specific issue decided was whether the gun he had was protected by the 2nd. Of course, the decision was non-sensical:
“In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.”
That short barreled shotguns were useful to the military was beyond question - they were known as “trench brooms” in WW1, which occurred only about 20 years previously. Under Miller, we’d all have the right to go out and purchase a full auto M16 or M4.
Here’s a great link for a discussion on Miller: http://www.rkba.org/research/miller/Miller.html