Why the Second Amendment protects the AR-15
Apr 17, 2017 13:09:15 GMT -5
Post by avordvet on Apr 17, 2017 13:09:15 GMT -5
Some jewels in the comment section...
Why the Second Amendment protects the AR-15
By David Deming - Wednesday, April 12, 2017
For decades the federal judiciary has been trying to interpret the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. It is, as Sanford Levinson has termed it, an “embarrassment” to an elite class of legal scholars that finds firearms to be unusual and repulsive objects. Now the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle is not covered by the Second Amendment, despite that fact that is the most common rifle sold in the United States. This execrable decision is the latest outrage in a long series of disingenuous judicial contortions.
The courts have never come to terms with the fact that any intelligible reading of the Second Amendment requires an interpretation that acknowledges and reconciles its two clauses. The operative clause speaks of the “right of the people,” while the prefatory clause justifies the operative clause by professing that a “well regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free state.”
Prior to the Heller decision by the Supreme Court (2008), for 60 years or more the federal judiciary almost unanimously ruled that the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual right. The militia mentioned in the prefatory clause was taken to be the National Guard. Thus, the right described in the operative clause was interpreted to be the right of states to maintain militia. This interpretation was never credible because it excised the Second Amendment from its contextual and historical underpinnings.
In the Heller decision, the Supreme Court stated unequivocally for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. But Heller was badly flawed.
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/12/second-amendment-protects-the-assault-rifles/
Why the Second Amendment protects the AR-15
By David Deming - Wednesday, April 12, 2017
For decades the federal judiciary has been trying to interpret the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. It is, as Sanford Levinson has termed it, an “embarrassment” to an elite class of legal scholars that finds firearms to be unusual and repulsive objects. Now the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle is not covered by the Second Amendment, despite that fact that is the most common rifle sold in the United States. This execrable decision is the latest outrage in a long series of disingenuous judicial contortions.
The courts have never come to terms with the fact that any intelligible reading of the Second Amendment requires an interpretation that acknowledges and reconciles its two clauses. The operative clause speaks of the “right of the people,” while the prefatory clause justifies the operative clause by professing that a “well regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free state.”
Prior to the Heller decision by the Supreme Court (2008), for 60 years or more the federal judiciary almost unanimously ruled that the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual right. The militia mentioned in the prefatory clause was taken to be the National Guard. Thus, the right described in the operative clause was interpreted to be the right of states to maintain militia. This interpretation was never credible because it excised the Second Amendment from its contextual and historical underpinnings.
In the Heller decision, the Supreme Court stated unequivocally for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. But Heller was badly flawed.
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/12/second-amendment-protects-the-assault-rifles/