Replies

Also, if they remove particular rights from the people because they reside in D.C., what other rights are they then allowed to remove?

And then would this not, thereby, define that the District of Columbia is not a part of the United States?

Actually I think it would go the other way. The Constitution would ONLY apply to Federal Zones and NOT to the rest of us. Now for all of you that believe your high school government class do not get all hyper. It is a well known and often discussed fact in Constitutional circles that someday one of them will bring this to the Court. It is only a matter of time before someone challenges Federal authority using this theory.

That the Second Amendment was designed to secure a personal right of the citizens is clear from Madison’s notes for the speech introducing the Bill of Rights. “They [the proposed amendments] relate first to private rights,” 12 PAPERS OF JAMES MADISON 193- 94 (C. Hobson et al. eds., 1979). Madison thus initially proposed placing the Second Amendment alongside other provisions securing individual rights in Article I, sec. 9—following the habeas corpus privilege and the proscriptions against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, together with his proposed protections for speech, press, and assembly. THE COMPLETE BILL OF RIGHTS: THE DRAFTS, DEBATES, SOURCES, AND ORIGINS 169 (N. Cogan ed., 1997).
If “bear arms” had the exclusively military connotation urged by Petitioners, no one would have proposed qualifying the phrase with “for the common defence.” But the Senate rejected just that proposal. JOURNAL OF THE FIRST SESSION OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 77 (1820). Some collective rights adherents speculate that “common defence” was considered redundant, but more plausibly the Senate did not wish to narrow “bear arms” to a purely military usage. After all, the first Congress knew how to condition individual rights on militia service. E.g., U.S. CONST. amend. V (no presentment or indictment right “in cases arising in . . . the Militia, when in actual service. . . .”)⁹
Indeed, House debates on the Second Amendment reveal the Framers’ reluctance to adopt text that might denigrate the individual character of the right to arms. Collectivists assert that a proposal to include a conscientious objector clause in the Second Amendment confirms the military character of “bear arms.” But the proposal was defeated after Rep. Gerry warned “that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms.” 1 ANNALS OF CONGRESS 778 (1834).