[nokcha]

>How is it "originalist" to take the 2nd Amendment, which refers to "well regulated Militia," and using it to say there's a Constitutional right to owning a handgun for personal protection...?

The relation between the operative clause and the prefatory clause is that, historically, kings had effectively destroyed the militia by forbidding the keeping or bearing of arms. Justice Scalia's opinion in Heller cites a great deal of evidence that the original public meaning of the phrase "the right to keep and bear arms" included keeping and bearing arms for individual self-defense.

[extra88]

How can one be an originalist and ignore half of the sentence, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,"? A law requiring a trigger lock does not infringe on the forming of militia or maintaining the security of a free State.

Conservative judges, including Scalia, generally don't claim that all arms regulation is unconstitutional, they don't claim everyone has a right to own RPGs. I don't like where they draw the lines and don't think they have good reasoning for where they draw them.

[rhino369]

Because grammatically (then or now), that part of the sentence doesn't limit the independent clause--"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

If the first amendment said, "A well read electorate, being necessary to a free state, the right the people to free speech, shall not be infringed," would you say it only covered political speech?

Practically, I don't see how it makes any difference. Handguns are used by every single armed forces in the world. Any militia would need them anyway. If I can't own a handgun, how could I serve in a militia?

[extra88]

> If the first amendment said, "A well read electorate, being necessary to a free state, the right the people to free speech, shall not be infringed," would you say it only covered political speech?

I would say the intent is much narrower than the actual text so while "a well read electorate" would call for more than just political speech, such a First Amendment would be allow more laws to restrict speech without being unconstitutional.

People in the armed forces don't own the weapons they use now. Today, the National Guard is basically the "Militia." Even if you think militia needs to include organizations not directed by governors, weapons can be owned by smaller political entities (towns, counties, etc.) or NGOs. In any case, weapons for a militia can be stored in an armory, not in every member's home or on their person all the time.

Yet again, even if some of the weapons were stored in the home, there's nothing unconstitutional about laws requiring trigger locks or other safety measures for their storage.

[nokcha]

>I would say the intent is much narrower than the actual text

Justice Scalia rejected the notion of giving much importance to the intent of drafters. His objective was to interpret the text according to its original public meaning.

As Scalia noted in Heller, the Second Amendment "codified a pre-existing right"; it didn't grant a new right. And although "self-defense had little to do with the right’s codification", "it was the central component of the right itself".

>People in the armed forces don't own the weapons they use now.

That's exactly the system that the framers wanted to avoid. The citizen militia (with their own privately owned arms) was envisioned as an alternative to a standing army in times of peace.

>Today, the National Guard is basically the "Militia."

The National Guard is the organized part of the militia. The unorganized militia has much broader membership. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246

>there's nothing unconstitutional about laws requiring trigger locks or other safety measures for their storage.

The trigger-lock requirement wasn't limited to storage. It didn't have an exception to allow removing the trigger lock to use to the gun in self-defense or for carrying holstered on one's person. That's why it was ruled unconstitutional.