[coloradan]

The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that there is no individual right to own a firearm.

B.S.! They didn't do so in Miller, and they didn't do so before then either. In fact, according to Kopel et. al they have ruled in favor of that right repeatedly, as part of larger arguments about other rights.

[tpaine]

Isn't it lucky that our political opponents kept this communitarian off the USSC.. -- Strange bedfellows..

[capitan_refugio]

Believe it or not, you will find a very convincing argument/analogy concerning the ownership of guns in the Dred Scott decision.

"It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State."

Taney argue that "to keep and carry arms wherever they went" was a right of "citizens in any one State of the Union." They right to keep and carry (bear) arms was a right on the same level as "the full liberty of speech in public and private" and the right to travel between states without "pass or passport, ... or obstruction."

In 1856, the right to keep and bear arms was recognized as an individual liberty by the Supreme Court.

If that's not enough, Taney also opined, "Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding. "

Again, the right to individually keep and bear arms is listed as a fundamental liberty as the right to trial by a jury and the right to avoid self-incrimination. Can anything be so clear?

[donmeaker]

Dred Scott seem to imply that there was a strong relationship between the rights of a citizen and the right to arms.

There had been a long series of federal cases whereby slaves had sued in federal court based on errors made in the attempts to kidnap them and deny them the rights of citizens. Taney sought to end that, by innovating a denial of all rights to any person of African extraction.