They're out there--just pre-1900. I dont' have time to indulge in a "Google episode", but as I recall, Stephen Halbrook has an online copy of a brief that he did for one of the federal courts which cites quite a few.
When you can support your claim, get back to me.
It has been about seven years since last researching the legal opinions of some of the 19th century rulings regarding the individual right to keep and bear arms. However, in my recollection one ruling stood out as especially meaningful. It was not about the second amendment, which state constitutions and popular awareness understood as about individuals—those individuals who are so focal in the origination of our philosophy of government and the meaning of the statements in our founding documents. The ruling was about the meaning of being a person. The case was that of Dred Scott and it is perhaps the most infamous case in U.S.S.C history. In the majority opinion, I believe it is Justice Taney’s words that suggest the states obviously did not intend that blacks would be given the full rights of the citizens of each states and that doing so would be a threat to public safety.
, “...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.”
I consider this decision fully revealing regarding the meaning of the second amendment by its casual inclusion in the opinion. But, if you need more explanation of the individual rights meaning of the second amendment, I offer to you more writings related to the case.
“Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant with the one just mentioned. It directs that every ‘free able-bodied white male citizen’ shall be enrolled in the militia.”
In all, the matter of an individual or collective right is a recent argument of no substantive value to issues of handguns or long arms. The second amendment sees the individual as the best tool to maintaining freedom and many other writings point to the mistrust of a large standing government army. What is important is that each American has the un-infringed right to keep and bear arms and each American’s role in the militia is offered as sufficient reason. There are many other good reasons, I believe, not explicitly put forth in the second amendment but implied in the concept of defense.
We have neglected the individual’s role in collective security and that has added greatly to the confusion about the second amendment. Our nation has never faced up to its weakening support of the idea that its citizens are the best defenders of freedom. The point of debate should be about that. Only after that debate can a debate about removing the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms be considered. I know how I fall on that issue in an era when diffuse and varied dangers appear in many aspects of modern life.
Are you a full citizen or are you denied the rights of free persons?
My $.02—thank you for reading and considering.