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.
Emphasis mine - obviously there’s more than one interpretation, but I think that if the intent was to only protect the rights of people to keep and bear arms if and only if they are members of some organized militia, it would have been clearly indicated by the text. It seems obvious to me that everything before that comma is explanatory, personally.
You can actually look at court cases that wildly expanded the second amendment throughout the years.
This idea that a gun is a given right for whatever reason you want was precisely not the understood reading of the text through much of the country’s history.
The reality is that a lot of that law discussion is bullshit, the Supreme Court infamously just picks and chooses constitutional interpretations to support whatever goes in line with whatever they wanted to do in the first place. The more you learn about the Supreme Court, the more obvious it becomes.
I can’t speak for the rest of Europe, but we don’t have anything similar here, but we don’t have a written constitution.
Perhaps. I read it as the “setup” being the emphasized part (i.e. the context set by the first part of the sentence), with the states being a representative of the “people” under the political theory at the time… This was written by the elite more or less fine with slavery and indentured servitude, and only thought that white male landowners really counted. Either way, I think regular citizens should be able own firearms.
Emphasis mine - obviously there’s more than one interpretation, but I think that if the intent was to only protect the rights of people to keep and bear arms if and only if they are members of some organized militia, it would have been clearly indicated by the text. It seems obvious to me that everything before that comma is explanatory, personally.
You can actually look at court cases that wildly expanded the second amendment throughout the years.
This idea that a gun is a given right for whatever reason you want was precisely not the understood reading of the text through much of the country’s history.
It’s very funny to me how much of US law discussion is arguing the intent of what some slavers wrote 250 years ago.
Is it even worse in Europe? Are people holding up the Magna Carta and going “see, it was never intended for widows to remarry”
The reality is that a lot of that law discussion is bullshit, the Supreme Court infamously just picks and chooses constitutional interpretations to support whatever goes in line with whatever they wanted to do in the first place. The more you learn about the Supreme Court, the more obvious it becomes.
I can’t speak for the rest of Europe, but we don’t have anything similar here, but we don’t have a written constitution.
Perhaps. I read it as the “setup” being the emphasized part (i.e. the context set by the first part of the sentence), with the states being a representative of the “people” under the political theory at the time… This was written by the elite more or less fine with slavery and indentured servitude, and only thought that white male landowners really counted. Either way, I think regular citizens should be able own firearms.
I upvoted both comments, because I’m torn on this