Originally Posted by
deltabound
What I think doesn't matter . . . not if we're a nation of laws, and not of men. The Supreme Court definitively squashed this interpretation of the Second Amendment in the recent Columbia v. Heller in 2008. According to them, the right to bear firearms is a personal and individual right. Period.
I won't bore you with the details; if you'd like to discuss restrictions that may be placed on the 2nd amendment, that's fine. No rights, even those that are constitutionally protected, are absolute.
If you truly believe that free citizens in this country should not have the personal right to bear arms, there is a legislative remedy. The Second Amendment, like all amendments, is subject to repeal or modification. It's happened before to other amendments, and can happen again.
Deltabound,
You don't have to bore me with the details of The District of Columbia vs. Heller. I've already taken that class and passed the final.
But, since you seem to enjoy the subject just as much as I do, I welcome the discussion.
D.C. vs. Heller held the D.C. ban on keeping handguns in the home and keeping other firearms in the home disassembled, to be unconstitutional.
While they did say it was part of the natural right of self defense, they hardly said that it was absolute and there was no "period."
In dicta, they alluded to the fact that states can regulate arms, but did not stipulate the level of scrutiny the States reason for the restriction should undergo. This is just the tip of the iceberg that is called the 2nd Amendment and you can see from the opinion that it is complicated.
Is that they way you understand it?
This is fun, isn't it?
New K Now