There is nothing wrong with arguing why you think a given ruling is wrong. Of course if you like a ruling you defend it.
If your argument is everyone else should shut-up once they rule the way you like then yeah…that is not cool.
Quite so. However, neither of those is (or need be) an *unrestricted *right. Considering the right to free speech is not absolute (see: yelling fire in a theater, public indecency laws and so forth), I see no reason the right of the individual to arm the bears they keep should be absolute as well.
I wondered how long it would be before someone would advocate arming the bears. If we can have lasers on sharks, then we need 12-gauges on bears. Then again, I’m a mostly anti-hunting / pro-gun person, so that fits…
You’ll get my man card when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. 
My gun too, if I had one. 
Ok, you are correct that the 1st and 2nd amendment weren’t interpreted based on a specific definition at the time, while the 7th did. I’m trying to say that ‘Suits at common law’ had a specific meaning at the time, but ‘arms’, ‘speech’, and ‘press’ didn’t. The latter are generic terms, whose meaning hasn’t changed with the development of new forms, and weren’t fixed at the time either. If there were a known list of the items that qualified as ‘arms’ or ‘speech’ they would have been noted in the Constitution. So the different ways of interpreting were based on the differences in the specification, not just randomly applying different means of interpretation.
BTW: The 7th could have been interpreted to mean any US law thereafter since the US laws were based on the English common law. Literalism in this case was used to deprive people of rights rather than expand them. So I’m not agreeing with the Supremes on this one, just pointing out the difference in the way the the amendments are specified.
Which people are those, specifically? Because if there aren’t any people in this thread who actually did that, then your posts here are kind of pointless, aren’t they? Of course, if someone in this thread was doing that, I’m sure you can call them out by name, and directly resolve this apparent hypocrisy.
My foils and my epee are in some relative’s attic 6,000 miles away. Perhaps a drinking contest?
As I already wrote, they could have also just as easily have said “The right of the People to form a well regulated militia shall not be infringed.” But they didn’t say that either.
What they said was “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” And that’s a lot closer to “The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” than “The right of the People to form a well regulated militia shall not be infringed.”
This doesn’t apply to me. I think guns are a serious problem in this country and the Second Amendment should be repealed.
But as long as it exists, we should abide by it.
I’m having a hard time parsing this. Are you saying there was no common understanding of the terms arms and speech in 1791?
I posted the first version that was officially enacted. I figure earlier drafts were just proposals and discussions.
Umm…I think I’m missing something here.
I disagree.
You are splitting the text and deeming half of it unimportant. Why? Since when is it ok to just toss parts of the constitution as meaningless? As I asked xtisme where else do we do that?
The two parts go together (part of the same sentence). If you want to know why the FFs wanted people to bear arms the explanation is right there in the text. It’s as plain as day.
Ha! I didn’t notice that before. That naughty Bricker!
Yes. Not to the same extent that ‘Suits at common law’ could be determined. I don’t know of any recorded list of weapons or forms of speech at the time that could have been specified in the Constitution, while the common law was specified in written form. The common law wasn’t based on a common understanding, but something specifically defined.
Stoid: My particular derision for this supposed lawyer’s opinion is rooted in the following. He says
But “militia” legally means neither of those things.
There are two subtitles, differentiating that into the “organized militia” (the National Guard) and the “unorganized militia” (everyone else covered under a).
So we’ve proven that your cite’s author is apparently ignorant of the Federal law on the issue.
Now, as for “well-regulated”.
“Well-regulated”, in an 1700s-1800s context, has multiple meanings. I’m quoting from examples in the OED here (hence no link), but the most pertinent one that differs from the modern colloquial meaning is
“Well-regulated”, in the time period, could potentially mean one of two things: either “appropriately constrained by law” (that is, the modern meaning of the phrase) or “in good working order; functioning as expected”. In a Founder’s era context, this is not terribly clear as to intended meaning, but in the context of militias of the time, “well-regulated” of the members of a militia generally meant “properly trained in use, maintenance, and storage of their arms and able to present themselves and arms at need”. There is no necessary connotation of government oversight, nor of “someone …in charge”, nor is there a connotation of “a body organized”.
Finally, there’s the grammar argument concerning the “well-regulated militia” clause and whether it actually informs the primary clause of the amendment, which has already been adequately covered upthread and which is unrelated to my conception of the author of your link as a hack.
First, it’s questionable under the current rules of this forum whether “calling them out” is acceptable here. Then again I seem to no longer seem to fully understand the nuances of the Rules in this forum on Cecil’s message board, as I keep reporting what seem to be Rules violations in here and have actually been told by a Moderator to stop complaining.
Second, if the appropriate place is the Pit then I’m not going to bother as I don’t feel the need to get whaled on today in an anti-Una Festivus. In fact I had already dropped the line in here and explained myself when you commented, and was looking forward to reading more discussion later.
Third, the topic at hand was specifically about how the Second Amendment is parsed, and my comment is with respect to the hypocrisy of those on the anti and pro-sides who seem happy to allow others (vis, the USSC) to parse the text for them, until the winds of change blow the other way. Then all of a sudden it’s time to second-guess and hand-wave. My first comment points to the anti-side because Miller was the banner of the anti-side, and until Heller the anti-side had more weight of USSC precedent on their side. In other words, they were first. If history had been reversed then the post would have been likewise. I can’t change history so there we are. This is by no means limited to the issue of gun control but that is the over-arching issue here.
Absolutely, you’re totally right. The Second Amendment’s first clause describes why the Founders wanted people to have the right to bear arms.
And the second clause describes the result of that desire. “Shall not be infringed.” Not “shall not be infringed, as long as they’re in said well-regulated militia.”
How does the first part make the second part ambiguous? The 1st part states a reason for the right of people to bear arms, but not as a qualifier. It’s the Constitution, it has defined a necessity for the security of a Free State. If you believe a well regulated militia is no longer necessary, that would require an amendment (IMHO), not simply deciding that the existing wording means that a well requlated milita is NOT necessary.
To me, that seems more like what you’re doing. You’re splitting the text in half and ignoring the part that explicity says “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” To put your question back to you, how can you claim this is meaningless?
The other half is “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”. That half, by itself, doesn’t actually give any direction. But you’re interpreting it to have an implied direction - that the primary intent of the Second Amendment is to regulate militia units.
But as I’ve said - repeatedly - if that was the intent of this amendment, it would have said so.
The amendment has two halves - one is a clear and precise direction and the other is a vague phrase which may have a meaning. My interpretation is that the overall intent is containing within the clear and precise direction and the vague phrase, if it has any meaning, is intended to support this clear and precise direction. Your interpretation seems to be that we should ignore the clear and precise direction and then assign a meaning to the vague phrase which is the opposite of the clear and precise direction.