Shall not be infringed, means shall not be infringed.
What good is *bearing* arms only within the confines of your own property or house? *bearing* means carrying around with you, and that would be out in public.
That is not what the Founding Fathers meant. They knew what they were dealing with, and intended for us to have guns for more than hunting.
Too many people ignore the fact that the Constitution is not the government giving us our rights, but rather the people restricting what the government can and can’t do that would have an influence on our private lives.
Now we have a situation where the government is giving itself more and more power over the lives of individual Americans.
It already was decided in the 1700s. It’s none of SCOTUS’ business.
This should be an easy question. Does any other right, recognized by the Bill of Rights, end when you walk out of your house and into a public space?
Do you loose the right to buy a bible or newspaper in public?
Does your right against self incrimination go away when you are on public property?
Does a citizens right to trial by jury end at the town square?
No? Then neither does your 2nd amendment rights.
During the California Gold Rush of 1849, thousands of New York State men went to California. They were all armed with their own pistols, some manufactured by local gunsmith from scratch. Everyone was armed. Some of these men later served in the Union Army with their own sidearms. The steward boys 8 years old and up on the steamboat carrying the NYorkers up the Mississippi were armed with their own pistols. Cf. Diary of Col. Hammond, Hammond’s Morgan Chargers from Crown Point NY, under Custer at Appomatox.
If it doesn’t extend outside of your home, you don’t have it.
That’s like saying you have the right to homosexual relationships, if you keep it in the closet.
One question: Do our 1A rights likewise extend beyond our doorstep?
Regards,
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tenche Coxe (introduction to his discussion, and support, of the 2nd Amend) "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution" Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789, pg.2
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion." - Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716), quoted by 18th century political philosopher James Burgh (1714-1775), Political Disquisitions: Or, an Inquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses, 1774-1775 "Whenever, therefore, the profession of arms becomes a distinct order in the state . . . the end of the social compact is defeated . . . . No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and the soldier in those destined for the defence of the state . . . . Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen."- Richard Henry Lee, Senator First Congress
"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them..." - Pennsulvania Patriot Thomas Paine, Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775
"The right of citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurption and arbitraty power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries On The Constitution, 1883
... to prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm ... is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege. - Georgia case of Nunn v. State, from 1846.
Lastly... for some of us... Weapons are literally part of our ancestors religion:
Havamal 38
A wayfarer should not walk unarmed,
But have his weapons to hand:
He knows not when he may need a spear,
Or what menace meet on the road.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed, as long as they stay in their houses.
Free men don’t need a cabal of robed loyalists to tell us what plain English means.
-PJ
The SCROTUMS (Supreme Court, Rulers Of These United Metrosexual States)
decide that "the state can force you to only have your guns at home"
...that means that:
The Founding Fathers thought that "a well-regulated militia" was one, that was never allowed to leave the house.
Good luck Lexington and Concord-ing with *THAT*.
What about the homeless?
How about people living in their car or camper? What if they move their car?
“Shall not be infringed”. <——— notice the period