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Read the book Origins of the Bill of Rights, chapter 6, by Leonard W. Levy (Yale University Press copyright 1999). In that chapter Professor Levy explains how the II Amendment is an individual right. The book was written before Justice Scalia was on the Supreme Court and it clarifies the real originalist meaning of the II Amendment.
While some guy named Leonard wrote a book, Scalia as one of the nine SCOTUS judges affects every American's life.
In this case, Scalia gave permission for individuals to own guns, and the NRA promoted ownership of killing machines that can cause mass inflection of damage in the shortest amount of time.
Originally Posted by logtroll
You're gonna have to sell your case a little better before you persuade me to go hunt down and buy an out of print book to read chapter 6 just to find out if yer blowing smoke up my ass again!
The second interpretation is that the 2nd Amendment's purpose does not only refer to the state's need for security, but to individual self-defense. This argument relies on precedent in English common law and colonial history and refers to many state constitutions and court decisions that have defined the right to bear arms as an individual right. James MadisonJames Madison
In addition, this interpretation relies on the fact that James Madison originally proposed this amendment as an insertion into the Constitution's Article I, Section 9, between clauses 3 and 4. This section mentions prohibitions on suspension of habeas corpus, bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. All of these are individual civil rights that are used by citizens to defend themselves against unjust government officials. All of these limit the power of the government.
Since this is where Madison believed the insertion of the 2nd Amendment should go, this interpretation says, he must have understood the right to bear arms as an individual right. If Madison had intended "the right to bear arms" only as a state right, he should have included the 2nd Amendment in Article I, Section 8, which describes Congress' military power over the militia.
All of Madison's original amendments were meant as insertions into the Constitution and not as a list at the end. The decision to add them at the end was made by Congress after he proposed them.
United States v. Emerson 1999 "Historical examination of the right to bear arms, from English antecedents to the drafting of the Second Amendment, bears proof that the right to bear arms has consistently been, and should still be, construed as an individual right." U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings, in re U.S. vs Emerson (1999) The History of the Right to Bear Arms.
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The right of the individual to keep and use weapons has a long tradition in Western civilization. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) wrote in Politics that ownership of weapons was necessary for true citizenship and participation in the political system. By contrast, another Greek philosopher, Plato (428–348 B.C.), wrote in the Republic that he believed in a monarchy with few liberties and saw the disarming of the populace as essential to the maintenance of an orderly and autocratic system. The Roman politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.) wrote in De Officiis of his support of bearing arms for self-defense of the individual and for public defense against tyranny. The Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) advocated in Discourse an armed populace of citizen-soldiers to keep headstrong rulers in line.
The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity. I'm a conservative because I question authority. Conservative Revolutionary
