Nobody, including the Supreme Court, has argued against so-called “reasonable restrictions” on firearms ownership and use. That’s why all the scares I’ve been hearing over the last few days ring rather hollow. You know, all this nonsense about how this means that mental patients will now be able to purchase surface-to-air-missiles. Similarly, it’s illegal to shout “fire!” in a crowded theater. A reasonable restriction on the 1st Amendment. Lower courts will have to hash-out exactly what that means in the years to come.

However, a total ban on a certain type of weapon which has a positive use, covering persons not found mentally or morally deficient…is not a “reasonable restriction.” That’s all the Court has said.

Two out of four of your quotes make explicit reference to arms being centered around some militia-like organization (i.e., defense against government tyranny). The fourth implies it as a defense of “liberty,” and since gun crime was not a problem of the day, one must conclude similarly for that one.

Your unsupported circular logic amuses me. I trust you’ve got some kind of evidence for the claim that 18th century America was free of gun-related crime?

I’m also curious as to how anyone supports the idea that a “militia” would today be available to defend “liberty” against the infringements of our own government. I cannot work out how this refers to anything other than private arms (as a check on government).

I read these as actually support the opposite point of view that militias are the yardstick, which as I said, is what the judiciary has typically done up to now.

It has always seemed absurd to me that anyone would think our Founders wrote nine amendments to protect individual rights against government tyranny…but partway down the list, decided to include one which ostensibly grants government the right to regulate a core individual right. The “militia” interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is simply to establish the government’s right to call upon the citzenry for civil defense purposes in the event of a national emergency, nothing more. To construe it as a blank check for government regulation of guns is entirely inconsistent with the spirit of the other 9 amendments of the Bill of Rights.

Had the people been deprived of this right, it’s unlikely the War for Independence would have been won, and equally unlikely that the newly-independent colonists would have been able to defend their new nation against a British return, a large attack by the natives, or some European power trying to take advantage of the power vacuum.

Stop embarrassing yourself, moonbat.

“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American … The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.”
— Tench Coxe, 1788.

Peace

Well, it’s easy to be this certain. Read what other papers that the founding father’s wrote and you will see what they meant.

“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.” Tench Coxe in “Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution.” Under the pseudonym “A Pennsylvanian” in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1. Coxe sent a copy of his essay to James Madison along with a letter of the same date. Madison wrote back and the quote follows.

“Accept my acknowledgments for your favor of the 18th. instant. The printed remarks inclosed in it are already I find in the Gazettes here [New York] … The amendments … will however be greatly favored by explanatory strictures of a healing tendency, and is therefore already indebted to the co-operation of your pen.” James Madison in a response letter to Tench Coxe above supporting the interpretation of the Second Amendment as an individual right.

“to preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them …” Richard Henry Lee writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, Letter XVIII, January 25, 1788

I can going on this all day baz. But I have to work

Peace and Prosperity to you

My fear for the scotus is that one of conservative judges will die when Obama is in office….

Or worse, leftists appointed by McCain. Anyone to the right of Karl Marx will get rejected by the Senate…