[abraininavat]

I'm American, and I'm not nuts, at least not when it comes to guns. Our problem is that we worship our Constitution as a source of morality. We don't have the ability to ask whether this "right" makes sense in a modern context.

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Yeah, those all make sense. Guns? Why does the right to bear arms grant us the right to own handguns, rifles, and shotguns, but not rocket launchers? Why not landmines? In the future will the Second Amendment grant us the right to lasers? Does it only include lasers that have a rifle shape or a handgun shape? What about phasers? Only if they have a barrel? Will future phaser nuts buy off-market adapters to set their phasers to Kill?

We can keep on trying to interpret this vague amendment; or we can grow up and realize it is a stupid amendment that wasn't made with much forethought, repeal it, and learn to think for ourselves.

[thesagan]

Last week Eleanor Clift of Newsweek (put as much stock in her opinion as you wish, she almost always leans left) opined the Second Amendment applied much more to establishing militias to help put down rebellions in the early days of the U.S. (and I do know the threat of rebellion(s) then was quite high).

Personally, I'm not sure yet just how many people share this view that rebellion suppression was one of, if not the primary motivator for that language, but it does weigh on my mind as part of the overall debate, and factors into my weighing of how backward-looking AND forward-looking the amendment was/is.

[btilly]

My impression of the history is that the 2nd appeared at a time of change in the USA. At the point it was written it was clearly an individual right. By the time it got ratified, in some states it was seen as an individual right, and in others it was seen as a right to organize militias.

The legal question about which way to interpret it in the courts was not settled until 2008. Now we have clear precedent saying that it is an individual right, and moreover one that thanks to the 14th restricts state and local government's ability to regulate. See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&#3... for the text of that decision if you want to form your own opinions on what it now means.

(Note, I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.)

[thesagan]

Thanks for the link, I think that will be very helpful filling in gaps in my knowledge and thought that applies to this topic. An excellent source!