Nelson Lund on the DC Gun Ban Case
Nelson is probably the nation's top academic scholar on the Second Amendment. Here is something that he wrote up for the Heritage Foundation before the DC v. Heller case is heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
A Narrow Decision? If the Supreme Court accepts D.C.’s principal contention—that civilians have no constitutional right to possess firearms except in connection with militia service—the Second Amendment will essentially become a dead letter. . . . .
Labels: GunControl, SupremeCourt
posted by John Lott at 8:33 PM
3 Comments:
"A well structured plan, being necessary to the achievement of goals, the right of participants to strive for success, shall not be denied"
I am constantly scratching my head due to the bizarre interpretation of english employed when reading the 2nd Amendment.
The sentence was written by people employing old english, not contemporary American english - and should be parsed as such.
It is incorrect to split the amendment into two halves. It is simply not divisible in this manner.
"A well regulated militia"
Why have this militia?
"being necessary to the security of a free state"
What is this militia?
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms"
How should this militia be considered?
"shall not be infringed"
Fully collapsed, the 2A reads "A well regulated militia shall not be infringed". The injection of the two aformentioned segments provide important context to combat ambiguity.
Well regulated does not, in old englsh, mean "well controlled or managed by a government". "Well regulated" means well skilled, well drilled". In fact attaching the term "regular" to a unit was meant as a comment on their skill at arms.
End of argument about National Guard and such nonsense.
Thanks, Richard. You are indeed exactly right on that point.
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