Quote:
Originally Posted by O'Sullivan Bere
This case is not a guarantee that the SCOTUS will settle the meaning of the 2A.
The 2A reads as follows: "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."
The two competing arguments that consider all the language of the 2A, as they must for a court-quality discussion because language in the Constitution or any law cannot be totally ignored as if it was not there or is purely redundant, have always been pretty much the following:
1) The first clause states the purpose of the second and means the 2A recognises a right of people to individually bear arms so they can defend their state with a well-regulated militia,
versus
2) The first clause states the purpose of the second and means the 2A does not guarantee a personal non-militia right to own firearms but guarantees the people in each state to have an armed militia.
The unusual aspect to this particular case is that it is a D.C. ban. D.C. is not a state. It's under federal jurisdiction. Thus, the SCOTUS may very well hold that the 2A is inapplicable to the D.C. gun ban because it is not a state and quit there without deciding--once again--the ultimate issue everyone has wanted answered.
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The problem here is the specific and deliberate use of "the people".
There is no instance in the Bill of Rights where the phrase "the people" secures anything but an individual right. It secures an individual right in the First Amendment, and an individual right in the Fourth Amendment.
It seems highly illogical to conclude that "the people" means one thing in the First, something else in the Second Amendment, and then reverts to the original meaning in the Fourth Amendment, IMHO.
Personally, I expect the court to either rule on procedural / technical grounds, or to craft something so narrowly applied to the DC ban as to be meaningless in the more general sense of the Second Amendment nationwide.
Matt