[robertpaulsen]

"So you maintain that the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms is not what is protected, but rather a constitutionally narrowed right of the militia to keep and bear arms?"

You are, of course, referring to the second amendment?

The vast majority of the courts have ruled that it protects a collective right -- the right of individuals to keep and bear arms as part of a Militia shall not be infringed by the federal government. That's what I'm saying.

As to this individual pre-existing right to keep and bear arms you're referring to, that right is protected by each state's constitution.

[Still Thinking]

So you’re saying that because some courts, government employees, make a finding which favors the government, it MUST be right, even if it cannot be squared with the merits, as interpreted by a non-government-employee of average intelligence???

I’m not posting this to take a position the issue as much as to chide you for relying on court findings as if they could supersede the merits.

[William Tell]

robertpaulsen said: "As to this individual pre-existing right to keep and bear arms you're referring to, that right is protected by each state's constitution."

Yet you seem to admit that the very "pre-existing" right to which we are referring, is the right that shall not be infringed in the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment doesn't create a right. If it doesn't create a right, then how do you justify suggesting that it only protects a part of the right to which it refers?