The Right to Bear Arms

As the DC gun ban heads off the court let me proclaim myself someone who would like to see law-abiding individuals be permitted to own handguns but doesn't at all think it's clear that this is the correct interpretation of the second amendment. Certainly it seems like a defensible reading, but this is just one of several points on which despite the table-pounding from both sides I think you have to say that there's not really a "correct" answer.

In policy terms, I think recognition of an individual right to gun ownership would do no harm (I don't believe that DC's near-blanket ban is doing anything useful to ameliorate the crime rate) but might clear the path for some more sensible forms of gun regulation. Identifying guns used in crimes and tracking them down, and creating strong incentives for people not to sell guns to criminals are both things that would, I think, be useful tools for law enforcement to have. But voters in jurisdictions featuring a strong culture of gun ownership and relatively little concern about violent crime tend to be extremely hostile to any such measures, seeing them as little more than stalking horses for a liberal plot to take everyone's guns away. Recognition of a limited individual right to gun ownership might allow us to move to a more productive regulatory equilibrium than the one in which urban areas enact super-stringent gun regulations that are then completely undermined by the much laxer rules elsewhere.

Comments

What about The Right to Arm Bears?

Posted by Robert Powell | March 17, 2008 1:22 PM

Personally, I'm all in favor of the right to Bare Arms.

Posted by flippantangel | March 17, 2008 1:28 PM

Interesting. I'm sort of the opposite. I tend to think that the NRA interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is the correct one, but I wish the right weren't so expansive. On policy grounds I suspect I mostly agree with you.

Posted by sd | March 17, 2008 1:33 PM

Sounds like a discussion for the Colbert Report, Robert.

Personally I'd also like to see law-abiding citizens able to own firearms for the purpose of self-defense. But I don't believe that an individual right is what the Amendment was talking about. Compare the wording to Article VI of the Articles of Confederation.

US Constitution, Amendment II:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Articles of Confederation, Article VI:
"No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgement of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."

Obviously the Articles were superseded by the Constitution, but it's reasonably clear to me that the Amendment was originally referring to the previous document. That provision was more about States' Rights, than Individual Rights.

Posted by Tel | March 17, 2008 1:42 PM

That's been my stand for a while. I own a gun, and think people should have the right to. But I don't think the 2nd amendment is relevant in talking about the legality of owning one.

Posted by Joe | March 17, 2008 1:49 PM

The problem is those freaks who are paranoid that liberals want to take all their guns away are absolutely right to think so.

This issue is so stupid, it's ridiculously annoying. Yeah, there are a lot of people out there who think a silly little thing like a felony on your record shouldn't prevent you from owning a gun, and nobody should have to wait two weeks to get one... but would they feel that way if places like DC didn't have such comprehensive bans? I don't know. I think in this situation, local conrol has had really negative effects. It would be a lot better if people were just forced to find a compromise position: yes, law-abiding citizens can own what they want, but they have to wait for checks to insure they aren't felons. Instead we have lots of places with extremes in both directions.

Posted by mpowell | March 17, 2008 1:55 PM

I would have little problem with private gun ownership if we would simply require guns to be licensed, just as we do with that other potentially deadly weapon, the automobile.

Posted by Virginia | March 17, 2008 1:55 PM

The argument I seldom see made is that it makes no sense to argue that the First and Fourth Amendments should be read very broadly, but the Second narrowly. When interpreting a list of rights designed to protect the individual against the government, one should err whenever possible on the side of the individual.

For my part, I am praying that the Supreme Court just says, once and for all, that all y'all can have guns.

Then the NRA dies.

Posted by nitpicker | March 17, 2008 1:58 PM

The problem is those freaks who are paranoid that liberals want to take all their guns away are absolutely right to think so.

Well, I think this has now become a decidedly minority view in progressive circles. Perhaps it is more precise to talk about liberals who "want to make it much more of a hassle to own a gun in the hopes of reducing their prevalence, increasing their price, and making it more difficult and expensive for criminals to acquire them."

Anyway, this second idea is how I think we ought to proceed. Keep them legal. But make them real expensive and challenging to get a hold of.

Posted by Jasper | March 17, 2008 2:28 PM

The nation is awash in firearms and coincidentally, I guess, has a murder rate that dwarfs that of the nations of western Europe. I hope DC can keep its law.

The phrase "well-regulated militia" strikes me as unequivocally not synonymous with "pretty much anyone." But I know that's just me, and those with an unbiased interest in selling as many firearms as possible will view the nuances of the language differently.

Posted by Paul Maurice Martin | March 17, 2008 2:32 PM

Anyway, this second idea is how I think we ought to proceed. Keep them legal. But make them real expensive and challenging to get a hold of.

And we can use our successes in the war on drugs as a model!

Posted by Brad | March 17, 2008 2:42 PM

For my part, I am praying that the Supreme Court just says, once and for all, that all y'all can have guns.

Then the NRA dies.

Oh please. The NRA would keep going strong because it and its members believe the Second Amendment prohibits all regulation of guns. A Supreme Court ruling that holds that all individuals have the right to own guns subject to reasonable restrictions would still be subject to...reasonable restrictions. And the NRA will fight those retrictions, just like it always has.

It is naive in the extreme to think the issue would just go away as a hotbutton political issue as the result of such a ruling.

After all, which Democratic leaders are invested in gun control today? What bill is out there that actually threatens to limit or regulate guns? They don't exist! The right has essentially won the gun control debate. It's over. There are no serious politicians out there pushing for new regulations on guns at the federal level, that's for sure. And yet the NRA is stronger than ever.

Objectively, one might think a Supreme Court ruling that says everyone has the right to own a gun whould de-fang the NRA. But since when is the Right objective? I think such a decision would strengthen the NRA's hand, demoralize gun-control advocates even more, and have little-to-no-effect on the usefulness of guns as a political wedge issue for the Right, at least in the short term.

Regardless of Matt's masculine desire to grip cold steel in his pudgy fingers, gun control should be an issue in this country, so long as we lead the world in gun deaths by a dramatic margin. A Supreme Court decision enshrining everyone's right to live out Matt's fantasy into law wouldn't help gun regulation efforts in the least. It would likely have the opposite effect.

Posted by owenz | March 17, 2008 2:42 PM

Anyway, this second idea is how I think we ought to proceed. Keep them legal. But make them real expensive and challenging to get a hold of.

You're exactly right Jasper. Law abiding people who live in high-crime areas and happen to be poor have no business owning a firearm for self-defense. That's what the police are for - duh!

Posted by Brad | March 17, 2008 2:44 PM

And we can use our successes in the war on drugs as a model!

You're comparing like to non-like: prohibition (which I agree almost never works) with legalization/regulation.

Posted by Jasper | March 17, 2008 2:48 PM

There are no serious politicians out there pushing for new regulations on guns at the federal level, that's for sure. And yet the NRA is stronger than ever.

Right on owenz. It's not as if Barack Obama supported a federal ban on semi-automatic weapons, a ban on handguns, or thinks that Constitutional rights are malleable according to jurisdiction! Good gravy, what's all the fuss about!

Posted by Brad | March 17, 2008 2:49 PM

I think anyone should be able to own a firearm except the people who have obsessed over it. They're crazy.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 17, 2008 2:52 PM

You're exactly right Jasper.

I'm aware of that.

Law abiding people who live in high-crime areas and happen to be poor have no business owning a firearm for self-defense.

I disagree with you there. I think law-abiding citizens most certainly ought to be able to own firearms, even if they're poor. Perhaps gun enthusiasts could start a non-profit foundation to fund the gun purchases of poorer Americans who qualify to own weapons, but don't have the ready cash.

Posted by Jasper | March 17, 2008 2:53 PM

This is the kind of important issue that civilized people should compromise on.

That we're not civilzed enough to compromise leads me to think the extremists have a point.

Posted by Kim | March 17, 2008 3:02 PM

Oh yeah, makes total sense. Cause, really, the NRA would totally be fine with reasonable limits on guns. Right? Right?

Posted by eriks | March 17, 2008 3:05 PM

You're becoming unreadable, Matt.

Posted by Jacob | March 17, 2008 3:08 PM

Here is an advocate of the right to own guns for self-defense who isn't necessarily against the kind of limits you advocate:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=17147&news_iv_ctrl=1021

Posted by NS | March 17, 2008 3:18 PM

There are no serious politicians out there pushing for new regulations on guns at the federal level, that's for sure. And yet the NRA is stronger than ever.

And that's why John Kerry and the Democrats never made a big issue about the sunset of the Clinton Gun Ban in the 2004 election.

The specific criticism from Kerry was that Bush was insufficiently effective in pushing renewal for the ban he endorsed. That's right -- Dubya Bush endorsed the Clinton Gun Ban. Is the incumbent president a "serious politician"?

Would that you were right about Democrats smartening up, but our right to keep and bear arms is not safe.

require guns to be licensed, just as we do with that other potentially deadly weapon, the automobile.

There is no fundamental human right, written into our Bill of Rights, to own an automobile.

Nor is there a successful, powerful lobby working to ban automobiles. More's the pity.

Posted by Brian | March 17, 2008 3:21 PM

There's no fundamental human right not to license and control guns.

In fact, the right to own one is not, itself, absolute, as the NRA itself agrees (they do, for example, at least pay lip service to the idea of keeping them out of the hands of convicted felons).

Posted by Tyro | March 17, 2008 3:26 PM

Incidentally, I would be very well amenable to believing the interpretation of the 2nd amendment as an enshrining an absolute, individual right to firearms ownership if it could be shown that the founding fathers were specifically thinking of Tokagawa's destruction of firearms in Japan in the 1600s and felt that the government needed to be restrained from such measures.

Because, otherwise, the parallels between the articles of confederation and the 2nd amendment seems to be a rather compelling demonstration that the intent was related to militias.

Posted by Tyro | March 17, 2008 3:29 PM

There was an article, and accompanying book, published a few years ago that discussed the deep background of the Second Amendment in great detail (I recall neither book, nor author now, but I remember been very impressed by the work the author had done in the subject).

The upshot? The framers meant the second amendment to mean exactly what it appears to mean: that the *individual* right to own a gun is guaranteed by the Constitution. There's really no other way to parse that amendment, once you know the history of it. How it came to be.

However, the founders of this country intended the Constitution to be a living document, not a static one. Anyone who argues otherwise is just being obtuse. That includes mercenary hacks like Scalia.

The problem is, there are now over 300 million people in this country, most in densely populated cities, that often simmer with all kinds of racial, cultural, and class tensions. Things the founders would have understood very well.

If you took a plurality of the founders who approved the Constitution, on a little guided tour of South-Central LA (or of some of the shooting locations for *The Wire* in Baltimore), on a hot Saturday night in July...when the tour was done, most, if not all, of those founding fathers would very likely say something on the order of:

"What the FUCK were you all thinking??? We NEVER intended the Second Amendment to cover this kind of situation. Why in hell didn't you CHANGE it long ago???"

Much of the Constitution is a remarkably prescient document. The fact that most of it still works so well is a tribute to the global thinking of the founders. When the document deals with time-bound specifics though, it fails, as all such political documents fail when such specifics have changed.

The founders would be utterly dumbfounded and appalled that we have not changed the Second Amendment. I think even the most rabid NRA gun-nut has a feeling that this is true..which is why they fight so savagely to keep things as they are.

They know the situation is ridiculous and untenable. So they fight. And win. Because they can.

But to say the Founders would approve of our current regulation, or lack thereof, of firearms, is the height of disengenuity. Such argument displays a complete lack of moral imagination, not to mention a lack of historical awareness, and sheer common-sense.

Posted by LL | March 17, 2008 3:39 PM

I think anyone should be able to own a firearm except the people who have obsessed over it. They're crazy.

Exactly. In any group of people with guns (I live in the South), there is the one who screams about how we all need as many guns as possible before the UN comes to get them, with Hillary Clinton leading the charge in a black helicopter. And everyone else grips their handles a little tighter, steps slowly back, agreeing as much as possible, watching his hands carefully...

Posted by Kiril | March 17, 2008 3:41 PM

LL: "There's really no other way to parse that amendment, once you know the history of it. How it came to be"

You are wrong. There are competing articles and interptations of the history. I won't link to them, but there are out there. This is seriously contested jurisprudence, when MY is right that there is no CORRECT answer. It is a matter of interpretation; and we'll see how the court resolves it.

Posted by e | March 17, 2008 4:03 PM

LL: "There's really no other way to parse that amendment, once you know the history of it. How it came to be"

You are wrong. There are competing articles and interptations of the history. I won't link to them, but there are out there. This is seriously contested jurisprudence, when MY is right that there is no CORRECT answer. It is a matter of interpretation; and we'll see how the court resolves it.

Posted by e | March 17, 2008 4:04 PM

Well, there are some arguments that can't really be made in good faith. For instance, self-defense against criminals doesn't have anything to do with the amendment.

The problem is once you acknowedge that the amendment is about military-class weapons, you end up concluding that handguns could be banned, but automatic weapons couldn't be. Nobody really wants to go there.

Well, almost nobody.

Posted by AlanC9 | March 17, 2008 4:37 PM

"Incidentally, I would be very well amenable to believing the interpretation of the 2nd amendment as an enshrining an absolute, individual right to firearms ownership if it could be shown that the founding fathers were specifically thinking of Tokagawa's destruction of firearms in Japan in the 1600s and felt that the government needed to be restrained from such measures."

Right, it's not as though British troops had been going around confiscating firearms in America only a few years earlier.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | March 17, 2008 6:01 PM

"Cause, really, the NRA would totally be fine with reasonable limits on guns. Right? Right?"

Right. People who think otherwise are clearly unfamiliar with the NRA's actual track record of supporting moderate gun control, such as the ban on ownership of new machine guns.

The gun control movement continually paints the NRA as some kind of absolutist defender of gun ownership, and the NRA leadership are quite happy to have them do that, because gun owners tend to get a bit ticked off when they learn just how much in the way of compromise the NRA is actually comfortable with.

It's somewhat amusing to 2nd amendment activists to see the NRA attacked for the 'extreme' positions we only WISH the NRA would actually hold.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | March 17, 2008 6:21 PM

There are numerous quotes from the Founders that establish without a doubt that the intent was that every able-bodied man in the country would be allowed to be armed, so that they THEN could participate in a "well-regulated" state militia.

The Supreme Court itself in a case in the earlier part of the last century ruled that a sawed-off shotgun did not fall under the Amendment because it wasn't a "military arm" - which was incorrect, BTW, because they were used in WWI trench warfare.

The bottom line remains that the Founders intended the population to be armed in some fashion or other in order to ensure that the Federal government did not become a tyranny.

Today people argue that there is no way the US population could oppose the US military because it has "heavy weapons." This betrays a total ignorance of what constitutes "guerrilla war". If Iraq hasn't demonstrated that you can wage a very effective guerrilla war against the US military, then you've learned nothing.

And the fact that the Iraqis started out with the advantage of having almost unlimited access to explosives and heavy weapons due to the stupidity and incompetence of the US military in not seizing the arms depots all over Iraq is not relevant either. Even if they hadn't access to those weapons, that would merely have slowed the insurgency down a bit while they acquired the weapons from elsewhere or from the US military itself - the classic guerrilla way to get weapons.

There was a classic guerrilla war in Cyprus if I remember correctly that started with a half dozen guys armed with hunting shotguns. And in the US, you have an estimated 70 million to 170 million firearms available in private hands - including automatic weapons.

Which figure also demonstrates the complete physical impossibility of "banning guns". If you can't ban drugs, you can't ban guns. It's that simple.

An example is the tightening up of registration of automatic weapons many years ago. Approximately 100,000 automatic weapons had been registered with the BATF. Under the new law, there was a one year grace period where a previously unregistered automatic weapon could be registered without penalty.

ANOTHER hundred thousand automatic weapons were registered during that period.

Which of courses means that there is at least ANOTHER hundred thousand automatic weapons that will never be registered due to the owner's paranoia.

And the fact that you have various racially motivated gangs means you're not going to change the violence level if you try to ban guns. Because the gangs are precisely the people who will continue to possess guns regardless of any ban.

Trying to solve gang violence by banning guns is simply ludicrous. In the old days, New York gangs got their guns very simply. They lured some individual cop down an alley, jumped him, beat the crap out of him and took his gun.

Classic guerrilla war yet again.

Banning guns won't even reduce the suicide rate - jumping off a high enough building is more effective than using a gun. Overdosing on commonly available drugs is also easier.

Banning guns theoretically could reduce the number of domestic shootings if you made it hard enough to get one. The problem there is that some other weapons would be used. The other problem is that banning guns will start a black market in them which will be even more efficient at delivering weapons to people than the present circumstances. At least today, you have to present ID, be fingerprinted, and pass a check. In a black market, none of that would be done.

Again, look at the "War on Drugs". A "War on Guns" would produce exactly the same effect.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 17, 2008 6:29 PM

"The Supreme Court itself in a case in the earlier part of the last century ruled that a sawed-off shotgun did not fall under the Amendment because it wasn't a "military arm""

Actually, they ruled that nobody had told them in court that they were military arms. Which is true: Only the government argued before the court in the Miller case, Miller went on the lam when the lower court freed him, and was dead by the time the Supreme court sent the case back for that very question to be resolved.

Amazing, isn't it? 70 years of 2nd amendment jurisprudence, balanced like an upside down pyramid on a Supreme court case which was a trial in absentia.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | March 17, 2008 6:34 PM

voters in jurisdictions featuring a strong culture of gun ownership and relatively little concern about violent crime tend to be extremely hostile to any such measures, seeing them as little more than stalking horses for a liberal plot to take everyone's guns away. Recognition of a limited individual right to gun ownership might allow us to move to a more productive regulatory equilibrium

The idea that giving some ground to conservatives and recognizing the validity of their concerns leads them to be more amenable to sensible compromises, and less fearful that liberals are just secret communists, doesn't have a very good track record. Especially when the conservative side includes massive well-financed business-funded single-issue lobbying groups dependent for their bread and butter on portraying liberals as mad Bolsheviks.

Posted by brooksfoe | March 17, 2008 9:46 PM

When you look at how the other individual rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are treated, you can see the untenability of admitting the RKBA as a right but continuing to advocate licensure, regulation, etc.

A Bill-of-Rights right is a right. This means it is subject to "strict scrutiny" by the courts, which means that most of the legal regime built around guns will not stand. Of course, that's assuming the courts act consistently. They're not so strong on that.

Posted by Leonard | March 17, 2008 11:54 PM

I would have little problem with private gun ownership if we would simply require guns to be licensed, just as we do with that other potentially deadly weapon, the automobile.
Posted by Virginia

Quite poorly thought out. You are efectively saying gun ownership is not a Constitutional Right, but only something that is suffered and permitted by government officials who must approve, if their whims fancy, with a hefty license fee. Like someone applying for a license to distill and sell alcohol.
Care to do that with other rights? How about you are free to speak on political matters of the State agrees, you pass the initial "speaker exam" of 180 dollars, get three people to vouch for your character, do an interview with the local police chief about the attitudes you have about speech, then pay an annual fee of 45 dollars. And announce each time you want to make a speech that you will do so with a document, then wait 10 days.
That is essentially the present gun licensing regime in several states infested with Lefty Dem Nannies.

*****************
The nation is awash in firearms and coincidentally, I guess, has a murder rate that dwarfs that of the nations of western Europe. I hope DC can keep its law.
Posted by Paul Maurice Martin

The famous anti-gun people's "Europe analogy" is undercut by noting that America is warped by astronomically high black crime levels. The white American murder rate is very close to the white European one. (Armed Europeans like Swiss, Finns, Israelis, Swedes - vs. disarmed populations like the UK the murder rate there amongst whites shows no correlation to guns.)
Japanese-Americans, very close to Japan's rate.

*******************

Hack's right. One of the times I agree with what our ex-con writes. An armed citizenry is a bulwark against tyranny. And you cannot have an effective "gun ban" anymore than you can "ban" all existence of illegal drugs in the US. Guns are actually easier to make or smuggle by black market than illegal drugs are to synthesize or smuggle in.
Lefties don't understand that while guns can be high-tech manufactured with awesome accuracy and reliability, for 400 years people have been making state of the art guns with little more than basic skill, pieces of wood and steel, and basic metal-working tools.. weapons that get the job done. One of the guns I have is a .45 that was made circ 1952 by a Filipino out of wrecked US Army Jeep parts. You have experienced gun owners that handle and inspect it and don't get it was homemade by a guy with a hacksaw, file, bending vise, drill, Jeep parts and 2 months time...It shoots for crap, but shoots good enough.
***********************
Well, there are some arguments that can't really be made in good faith. For instance, self-defense against criminals doesn't have anything to do with the amendment.
Posted by AlanC9

Incorrect. People at the time the Constitution were already given individual gun ownership Rights under the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England. Which said that people after England's Civil war had the right to protect themselves and their property against both criminals and outside enemy. The 2nd is seen by the preponderance of pro-individual rights constitutional scholars as a clear continuation of the right of self-protection American Colonists considered their natural, fought-for right BEFORE armed Americans won Independence.

The same conditions existed in 1783 America as had in 1688 Britain. No real police, brigands, thieves, potential hostiles within and without Britain that threatened Brit's lives and property unless they could offer armed resistance.

At the time, people had no real police protection in the colonies. Against enemy(hostile Indians or hostile Euros) or criminals. Nor was the Militia called out when Indians were a low, but persistent menace of attack or whenever a significant crime happened. What happened was armed neighbors fought off Indians on occasion, or banded together to apprehend a thief or killer and march them at gunpoint sometimes 30-40 miles to the nearest constable and the gaoler he had on hire that had a secure place to hold a criminal 'till trial.
Guns were also commonly used for hunting because there was a strong need for more protein in the diets of Colonials and their dogs and slaves/servants of the time. And with the country 85% farmers, regular everyday use of guns for slaughtering large livestock cleanly and humanely, protecting all livestock from predators like foxes and puma, wolves, and crops from destruction by deer, raccoons.

Firearms were ubiquitous in Colonial times and the lauded anti-gun academic that claimed guns were rare outside organized militia groups was exposed as a rank fraud.

Posted by chris ford | March 18, 2008 12:15 AM

Although I just made a post elsewhere that Ford almost never has a point worth considering - this post of his has points worth considering.

I stand corrected - but only because as a lunatic Ku Klux Klan member, almost by definition he's pro-gun and would know the facts I pointed out up thread.

When it comes to military matters or foreign policy - he's still an idiot.

I'm sure he thinks the same of me on those topics.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 18, 2008 3:04 AM

Can we at least all agree that if the ban is lifted and this leads to Yglesias purchasing a firearm, then the overall effect on society will be negative.

What do the 2nd amendment "scholars" think about a very narrow restriction applied only to Yglesias and a few other bloggers?

Posted by accidental discharge | March 18, 2008 4:09 AM

Re; Licensing.

As a matter or fact, quite a few of our fundamental rights are subject to some kind of licensing regime. Protest marches and large assemblies must normally be licensed. Radio stations and other forms of broadcast media must be licensed. Churches must be registered with the state in order to enjoy religious status.

I see no reason why a sensible licencing regime couldn't achieve a reasonable balance between the right of a law-abiding individual to own firearms and the interest of society as a whole in strong law enforcement and control of gun violence.

Posted by Virginia | March 18, 2008 8:35 AM

Guns, abortion, evolution, and (now) pizza.

I wonder if Yglesias works on a quota system.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 18, 2008 8:44 AM

Has our government even dared to suggest that assembly and protest on private property could be so regulated? That a church has to be registered before you can attend it? Heck, you don't even need a driver's license, or registration for your car, if you're not going to drive it on the public (government owned) roads.

Gun registration and licensing is remarkably more intrusive than existing regulation of any other fundamental right, in that it reaches conduct on private property, which does not directly impact third parties.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | March 18, 2008 11:27 AM

I was off-line and camping in the great outdoors, with the occasional crack of deer rifles in the distance, while you all were discussing this.

It shouldn't come as a great surprise that the Court interprets the 2nd Amdmt to guaranty the personal right to possess firearms, given the widespread legal trade in and ownership of such devices. The Court is usually a conservative body when it comes to parsing its guiding document.

It's too bad that "privacy" and "shall not be infringed" doesn't appear in the same sentence of the BOR. It would have saved us a lot of hassles.

Posted by cmholm | March 19, 2008 10:09 PM