[KrisKrinkle]

"The people in the courtroom would only open fire in self defense, of course."

Somehow I don't think what the Founders had in mind was that the right to bear arms would include allowing a defendant to bear arms while being tried on a capital charge so that on conviction, the defendant could take a few innocent people down with him as the surviving people in the courtroom cut him down in self defense.

Respecting "each others right" presumes a common and correct understanding of what constitutes such right and where it ends. Or if not a common and correct understanding, at least an understanding that is sufficently correct and prevalent that a just society can exist.

[supercat]

Somehow I don't think what the Founders had in mind was that the right to bear arms would include allowing a defendant to bear arms while being tried on a capital charge so that on conviction, the defendant could take a few innocent people down with him as the surviving people in the courtroom cut him down in self defense.

For people, substitute "all free persons". Obviously slaves were never intended to have arms, either.