Tero wrote:Gun-rights advocates interpret “the people” to mean every person. This is called the “individual right” view of the Second Amendment and it wasn’t until 2008, by a 5-4 split decision that the Supreme Court took the “individual right” approach to the Second Amendment in a case called Dist. of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Until this decision, the Second Amendment was seen as a collective right.
No it wasn't. The phrase "the people" in the 2nd Amendment means exactly the same thing as the identical phrase found in every other part of the Constitution, which have always been interpreted as intended by the authors as meaning "each and every individual person," not a part of a collective.
You are using bogus information from Progressive Marxist sources to pander the now thoroughly debunked "collectivist" theory of the 2nd Amendment. Keep in mind that the Supreme Court NEVER, in all our history, held or even suggested that the 2nd Amendment was a collective right. Never. What it did was to studiously AVOID addressing that particular question. Every single SC case on guns turned on OTHER points of law, never upon whether the right protected was collective or individual. Much of that was probably political, but in the absence of a contrary court ruling the plain language of the Amendment rules, and "the people" has always, in every case, meant each individual and not the collective.
While state legislatures have from time to time tried to apply a collectivist interpretation to the 2nd Amendment, such attempts have been rebuffed by the state courts, with some notable exceptions. Chicago, for example, doesn 't ban guns, it allows rifles and shotguns, but it did ban handguns, but it did not do so based on a claim that the 2nd Amendment was a collective right to only be applied to active Militia members.
When the SC ruled in Heller it was NOT making new law. The Court cannot do that. What the Court did, for the first time in history, was to squarely address the fundamental collectivist/individual debate that prior Courts had been avoiding for more than 200 years. And what the Court found is that the "original intent" of the Founders who wrote the Bill of Rights was NOT to restrict the keeping and bearing of arms to members of a Militia, but rather to protect a pre-existing right to keep and bear arms inherent in every individual IN ORDER THAT the militia, when called to duty, would be "well regulated," which in the parlance of the time didn't mean what you think it means. The then-contemporary usage of the word "regulate" meant to equip and manage as well as issue orders to, and the then-contemporary structure of the Amendment mentions the militia as but one of the reasons that the right of the people shall not be infringed. The Court acknowledged the significant amount of scholarship about the 2nd Amendment that has taken place in the last 30 years or so which shows unequivocally that the Founders did not have a collectivist militia-only construction in mind when they wrote it.
What this means is that regardless of what any legislature or inferior court may have done in the past, the CORRECT interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is as protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms, including handguns, for the purposes of self-defense, hunting, AND as a pool of weapons which are available to the Congress in the event that the Unorganized Militia is called to duty in a national emergency. The Founders, at the time they authored the Amendment, recognized that citizen's militia comprised of all able-bodied males between 18 and 45 who were individually armed with their own weapons, which which they are familiar and competent, is an effective deterrent to attack from without or within. In addition, they recognized that because they were not requiring all members of the Unorganized Militia to keep and bear arms (as the Congress is completely empowered to do) it is desirable that ALL individuals (the people) be protected in their right to keep and bear such arms as they see fit to own so that there will be sufficient arms available to equip the Militia when called to duty by, if necessary, "taking" those arms under the 4th Amendment...and paying for them.
The real point is that the SC did not create a "new" interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, it merely affirmed the only and proper interpretation that was created by the Founders when they wrote it. This "original intent" is extremely important in construing any constitutional provision, and it's why the Progressivist notion of an "evolving" Constitution is crap. The only way the interpretation of the Constitution can change from the original intent of the authors is by amending it.
Therefore, it's not a "new interpretation" as your source suggests, it's an affirmation of original intent and a REBUKE of all other constructions, which is why Illinois was forced to capitulate and create a concealed handgun carry law and why neither Chicago nor DC can bar their residents from acquiring, keeping or bearing (at least in their homes...so far) arms including handguns.
You lose, and the Supreme Court says so. Your out-dated and fallacious Progressivist/Marxist/anti-gun/anti-individual rights/anti-liberty/anti-American reference is quite simply and completely wrong,
de jure.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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