What DOES The Second Amendment Mean?

No, but a law that is 0 percent effective at keeping guns out of criminals hands maybe, possibly should be dumped.

 

Isn't it funny how the same right-wingers who like to describe themselves as "strict constitutionalist" and decry "activist judges" are the same ones who ignore that first clause as though it weren't even there?

They're also the same ones who think that it'd be a good idea to have a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage, thereby taking rights AWAY from people in direct contravention of what the Constitution is supposed to do, but I digress.

 

Actually, after getting done with the Constitution which detailed everything the government COULD do, they drafted the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) to enumerate the rights of the governed.

 

Fair enough, but only one amendment has taken away the people's rights, and that was prohibition. How did that work out?

 

Not well. Thank God. Could you imagine the sports world today if Prohibition were still in effect?

 

Makes you wonder how many of us would have been born.

 

Given the current make-up of the court, it wouldn't shock me at all if they simply ruled this law unconstitutional. Yes, they're judges. But they're also appointed by politicians, and they know whose bread they need to butter.

 

Not to say that the justices aren't politically motivated in any way, but what exactly can be offered them in return for this bread-buttering? They already have lifetime appointments.

 

But not all the rights, Dan. That was one of Madison's original arguments AGAINST a Bill of Rights -- that, if you listed them, people would say that the enumerated rights were the only ones Americans possessed. (He changed his mind later, of course, and fought to get the Billl's amendments ratified. Flip-flopper!) It is clear from constitutional history that the BOR was meant to be read most broadly.
That said, it's pretty clear from the debates that the 2d Amendment was meant to apply to militias, and not to citizenry with an unlimited, unregistered arsenal. The only SCOTUS case extent now agrees with that position. However, we've gone so far down the road the other way that it's hard to see a practical alternative except tough registration and enforcement procedures. Banning handguns, for example, would work as well as banning marijuana has.

 

The Second Amendment is a lot like the Bible: It says pretty much whatever you want it to.

 

Does this mean I can't shoot pork chops?

 

In other words, assholes to the front of the line