[baix777]

The gun nuts have convinced so many people there is only one way to read the 2nd amendment.

"Despite the Supreme Court’s rulings in Heller and McDonald, many constitutional historians disagreed with the court that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to “keep and bear Arms” for the purpose of self-defense in the home. Indeed, for more than two centuries there had been a consensus among judges as well as scholars that the Second Amendment guaranteed only the right of individuals to defend their liberties by participating in a state militia. However, by the late 20th century the “self-defense” interpretation of the amendment had been adopted by a significant minority of judges. The self-defense view also seemed to be taken for granted by large segments of the American public, especially those who consistently opposed gun control."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Second-Amendment

[tpmoney]

They've done that because other readings require some pretty significant twists and turns to get there. Some are more reasonable than others, but take "guns" out of the equation and the individual right becomes obvious. Consider the following text:

"A well educated electorate, being necessary to the proper functioning of a democratic state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed."

A reading of the 2nd amendment that doesn't see it as an individual right means we must read the forgoing as protecting the right to keep and read books only for the class of people that are eligible to vote, and only in the service of educating them. And realistically, if you put that text on a multiple choice SAT with the question "Who has the right to keep and read books?" I don't think you're going to get many people answering "only people eligible to vote".

Beyond that, to read the 2nd amendment as not protecting an individual right would also require an interpretation of a right of "the people" to mean something other than every other reading of "the people" throughout the rest of the document:

* The right of "the people" to peaceably assemble as outlined in the first amendment is not limited to members of religious orders or members of "the press".

* The right of "the people" to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" is certainly not limited to some government defined collection of people who only have that right while they are collectively acting.

* The "person" whose rights are protected by the fifth amendment has been time and again ruled to be an individual.

* The tenth amendment clearly distinguishes between the federal government, the states and "the people". If "the people" are supposed to be the militia, how then are they distinct from the federal government or the state?

* The fourteenth amendment refers to "persons" and their privileges, immunities, life, liberties and property. But how could the state infringe on the rights of those people if the people are the militia and the militia is an arm of the state?

It seems strange that in a collection of amendments specifically in place to outline some hard limits on government power and particularly with respect to individuals under that government, that one and only one of those limits was to restrict the government from limiting another arm of the government, but in terms that referred to individuals in every other case it was used.