[Little Ray]

Actually, by the time of the American Revolution, something called movable type had been invented. Credit for this generally goes to a fella named Gutenberg, who invented it in the 1440's.

That said, if there's something wrong with a literal interpretation of the words of the Constitution, then it can be fixed. Its called an Amendment. Also, If you have problems with the literal interpretation of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers left a exhaustive body of correspondence detailing EXACTLY what they meant - called the Federalist Papers.

As for the Second Amendment, both the Federalist Papers and the personal statements and quotes of the founding father leave no doubts as to which side of the issue they come down on (individual right).

[supercat]

Actually, by the time of the American Revolution, something called movable type had been invented. Credit for this generally goes to a fella named Gutenberg, who invented it in the 1440's.

Had the practice of using movable types to form solid lead plates yet come into common use? Although someone with a quantity of type and some frames could set up pages far more quickly than a person would be able to engrave them, I think it was the production of printing plates from lead type that really made books affordable. Prior to that, one had to print all of the copies of a page that one would ever want fairly soon after setting it up (type was too expensive and scarce to simply leave pages set indefinitely in case they needed to be reprinted).