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To: Dead Corpse

"Re-read the FedCon's Art 6 Para 2. Then re-read Amend 2. the 14th re-iterated what so many States were ignoring due to the slavery issue."

It was not the intent of the founders to force the states to apply the federal bill of rights. In fact, almost every court case I can find on the issue before 1866 states specifically that the 2nd amendment is a restriction on actions of the federal government and was dismissed as not applying to state law. The debate around the 14th also strongly supports the idea that the state of Constitutional Law was such that the protection of the Federal bill of rights, not just guns but assembly and speech, did not apply to the states. As the states had ignored the Civil Rights act and were busily disarming blacks, preventing them from assembling and voting, the amendment was enacted specifically to reverse that practice. That the Courts ignored the intent and selectively incorporated the rights is another issue.


368 posted on 03/09/2007 12:13:56 PM PST by Jim Verdolini
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To: Jim Verdolini
It was not the intent of the founders to force the states to apply the federal bill of rights.

Yes. It was.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government. St. George Tucker. 1803

The prohibition is general. No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it,this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. William Rawle 1829.

383 posted on 03/09/2007 12:21:27 PM PST by Dead Corpse (What would a free man do?)
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