[Congress has the power] To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;It's the feds that decide the armament, not the state.
Congress’s specific description of pistols as militia weapons in the Second Militia Act, so soon following passage of the Second Amendment, offers conclusive proof that handguns are within the Second Amendment’s protection. PA50a-51a. In defining handguns as militia weapons, Congress broke no new ground. The Continental Congress likewise reported pistols as acceptable militia weapons ... Petitioners and their amici greatly overstate our Nation’s history of handgun regulation. Washington, D.C.’s complete handgun ban was the first such prohibition on American soil since the Revolution. The fact that “never before in the more than two hundred years of our Republic has a gun law been struck down by the federal courts as a violation of the Second Amendment,” Brady Br. 29, is a testament to the extreme nature of Petitioners’ enactments. Notably, Petitioners’ state amici do not defend or endorse a total handgun ban, which none of them maintains. New York Br. 1, 2. ... Various briefs invoke Georgia’s 1837 ban on the sale of certain pistols, Appleseed Br. 13; Law Professors Br. 18; Chicago Br. 14, but none mentions that the act was struck down—on Second Amendment grounds—in an as-applied challenge by a man who openly wore a prohibited pistol. Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846)....
Indeed, if rejected language is any clue as to the meaning of that which was accepted, perhaps the most telling example was the Framers’ rejection of the following proposed amendment: “That each State respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same. . . .” FIRST SENATE JOURNAL 126.
This proposal stated, in unmistakably direct and concise fashion, exactly that meaning which Petitioners would divine in the Second Amendment through tortured linguistics, fanciful explanations, and “hidden history.” And it was rejected by the Framers.
No. The federal government has the power, not the obligation, to provide arms. The states were concerned that the federal government would withhold arms, leaving the states defenseless. The second amendment ensured that the states could arm their own Militias.
You're wearing out Nunn v State. Have you nothing else?
Sure, pistols are used by some in the Militia. So too with swords and sabers. But they hardly contribute to the preservation of a Militia.
No. The federal government has the power, not the obligation, to provide arms. The states were concerned that the federal government would withhold arms, leaving the states defenseless. The second amendment ensured that the states could arm their own Militias.
You're wearing out Nunn v State. Have you nothing else?
Sure, pistols are used by some in the Militia. So too with swords and sabers. But they hardly contribute to the preservation of a Militia.