Most State Constitutions have broader ownership language than the Second Amendment. How do you think that happened?
Just supposition, but since the states (at least the original 13) were the "potter" to the Federal "pot", and the 2nd Amendment is a restriction against the federal government infringing on a pre-existing right -- and that the states were only ceding some of their powers and authority to the federal government they were creating, they sought to ensure certain particularly important Rights would continue to be recognized by their creation.
Yours,
Issodhos
I have to note my agreement with the substance of your post,
Issodhos, if I'm a little fuzzy on the formulation.
I take a middle view of the Second Amendment that is consistent both with the language and the historical record. The Second Amendment
was, as I believe you posit, a recognition that the States have the obligation and right to maintain their own militias for homeland defense.
What I "posit", NW ponderer, is, I think, more straight forward. In adding the restriction of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, the states were making it clear that the federal government they were creating would have neither the power nor the authority to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
If one wishes to read between the lines, one could also say that the states wanted this restriction against federal infringement in place because the states wanted to have available to them a pool of men comprising an unorganized militia who could be called into the organized militia if needed to defend against a tyrannical federal government or other nefarious villians -- and those best suited for such 'duty' would be those who privately owned and used firearms.
So, in practice, what the various states did when forming the 2nd Amendment and including it in the Constitution as a
Right was to acknowledge that the
right to keep and bear arms is a pre-existing
Right that cannot be violated by the federal government nor even by the state governments who, as creators of the Constitution, had also to have recognized it as such by naming it so.
Yours,
Issodhos
