So is he actually arguing that South Carolina was acting entirely lawfully and was fulfilling its Second Amendment rights as a state when it fired on Fort Sumpter? I thought the whole point of Lincoln's action was that South Carolina and all the other southern states were acting illegally.
As support for their position that the Second Amendment grants individuals a fundamental right to possess firearms, proponents of the traditional individual rights approach tend to focus on the Second Amendment's latter clause, which states: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This Court concludes that advocates of the traditional individual rights approach mistakenly rely on this clause as support for their position because, like the Ninth Circuit, the Court finds it "highly significant . . . that the second clause does not purport to protect the right to 'possess' or 'own' arms, but rather to 'keep and bear' arms. This choice of words is important because the phrase 'bear arms' is a phrase that customarily relates to a military function." Id. at 1072.
Hard to take a judge seriously when he argues ad absurdum and this judge ad absurds with the best of'em.
RTKABA advocates better start rethinking their priorities. They can lobby legislators all they want but it plays no role in activist courts. The courts will understand 5 million American citizens marching down the avenue toward the cort house however.
In a peaceful but forceful protest of course.