Wrong on Rights

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 19 December 2002 | Debra J. Saunders

[Tench_Coxe]

"As California Deputy Attorney General Tim Rieger noted, gun ownership can be seen as an individual right and still be subject to restriction in the interest of public safety. That's why your next-door neighbor doesn't own an atomic bomb. "

This is a fundamental error in the author's logic. A total gun ban can be justified by acting in the 'interests of public safety'.

The militia of the time in which the 2nd amendment was written was to bear arms that were readily available to the Continentals. In modern parlance ( and with the correct reference to the Miller ruling ), this means that rifles, pistols, grenades, even mortars that are available to the regular infantry should be available to the militia ( and not just a 'select militia' under whose definition the National Guard falls, but all males ( or, males and females ) between 17 and 60 ).
It becomes a little dicey when it comes to things such as tanks and the like ( since private cannon and armed sloops were available ). Weapons of 'mass destruction' tend to fall outside of the scope of what a typical infantry soldier would bear in combat, so the worn canard of a next door neighbor owning a nuke is facile at best.

[Noumenon]

Roger that.

[Noachian]

Am I missing something here? Whatever happened to separation of powers? The Ninth Circuit oversteps its bounds when it starts making laws, and should be put in its place.