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Old 11-22-2007, 06:28 AM
Metric Metric is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,178
Default Re: Supreme Court to Overturn DC Gun Ban once and for all

Andy, just what "right of the people" does the 2nd amendment protect, in your mind? I certainly agree that "bearing arms" could be used in many contexts to mean "military action," but the concept of protecting the government's right to perform military action seems ridiculous to me -- it's certainly not some fragile "right of the people" that needed a specific constitutional amendment in order to protect.

Additionally, "keeping" arms doesn't seem to imply any military action. If we're also acknowledging that the 2nd amendment protects the right of the people to keep arms, I find it very difficult to force this into a "military action only" context -- the concept of "keeping arms" seems to specifically imply that they're not going to be in active use all the time.

Also, citing the fact that books on English common law were reprinted in the colonies to provide support for interpreting the 2nd amendment as a right of the government doesn't seem very convincing, to me.
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