The second amendment preamble is not a restriction on who may keep and bear arms. It's merely a clarification of when those arms are protected.
If the Founders meant only to protect an armed populace, the preamble wasn't necessary. But since the Founders considered a well regulate Militia (rather than an armed populace) necessary to the security of a free state, they decided to be a little more specific.
Still trying to draw a distinction where none exists I see. Pathetic.
I suggest you go read the brief’s bit on preambles BEFORE continuing your rantings here. It’s all been addressed. (I’ve read it - have you?)
The second amendment preamble is not a restriction on who may keep and bear arms. It's merely a clarification of when those arms are protected.So I've often heard argued. But I'd not seen cites to decisions predating the drafting of the 2nd demonstrating that this was the established understanding of statutory preambles at the time.
It's one thing to say "this is how a preamble should be interpreted." It's another to provide evidence that "this is how preambles were interpreted at the time the 2nd was written."
I've often seen the former. This brief provides the latter.
“But since the Founders considered a well regulate Militia (rather than an armed populace) necessary to the security of a free state, they decided to be a little more specific.”
That is an interesting take considering that this country came about by way of an armed populace that became a well regulated militia. We did not have a well regulated militia when the Revolutionary war began. The brits did, but we didn’t. The people at the time were restricted on gun ownership, which was one of the causes of the revolution.
Nope. As the court correctly found in Miller (when you actually read the decision, not the various misrepresentations thereof), the militia clause provides guidance as to what sort of weapons constitute "arms" but does not speak to the question of when the right to keep and bear them is protected (like all individual rights, the answer is "always, barring special cases directly supported by one of the enumerated powers of government").
(The Court erred on the fact question of whether a sawed-off shotgun has the sort of militia use that would make it a type of Constitutionally protected "arms", but correctly identified that as the correct question to ask.)