One of the co-authors of this report, Saul Cornell, is a big anti-gunner. [url](http://volokh.com/posts/1173746455.shtml[/url]) Also note an advertisement on the webpage that this article comes from that endorses Obama. This report is not from a random group of historians that got together and objectively decided that the 2nd Amendment does not support the individual right to keep and bear arms, but rather anti-gunners getting together with an agenda.
The fact that the English Bill of Rights allowed for goverment regulation of firearms does not limit the American constitution from specifically forbading this. If the writers of the American Bill of Rights had wanted possible regulation, they would have said so. Instead, that used the blanket “shall not be infringed”.
From the aricle: “Nothing in this argument challenges the idea that eighteenth-century Americans had ready access to firearms, or that they valued the concept of a well-armed citizenry. Individuals were legally free to purchase and keep weapons as they could other property; but like other forms of property, the keeping of firearms was subject to extensive legal regulation.”
What regulation? That slaves couldn’t own guns? That is all I ever heard of.
“They rejected language that would have modified that authority, including a qualifying provision, proposed by the House of Representatives, defining the militia as “composed of the body of the people.” Acceptance of that definition would impair congressional authority to determine how extensive membership in the militia should be.”
While militia membership was an important reason to keep and bear arms, the lack of it does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms. The militia phrase of the 2nd Amendment does not limit the “shall not be infringed” phrase. The milita phrase is a declaration of intent, but is no restrictive in anyway.
Fore more info: [url]http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html[/url]
I made a few typos in my post above (I haven’t done much posting here—anyone know how to edit your post)
First link: http://volokh.com/posts/1173746455.shtml
Second link: http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html
Last sentence should read: The militia phrase is a declaration of general intent, but is not restrictive in any way.
The BoR was written as a set of prohibitions on government, not citizens; all subsequent regulations have come about through political subversions of unspecifed included rights thought to have been incorporated in the 9th and 10th Amendments.