[jwalsh07]

Original intent is a particular interpretation doctrine, there are others

LOL, they really let you teach students? God bless America.

Have you ever heard of the Federalist Papers? The second amendment is clear, the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall NOT be abridged. The second amendment is second for a reason and the 14th applies it to the states. Comprende'?

Would you care to address the problem you face of the liberal scholar Lawrence Tribe being on my side here Pitch?

[Pitchfork]

Jwalsh, if only the real world were as simple as you seem to comprehend it to be! We could play the dueling political scriptures game for days and resolve nothing.

Second ammendment types seem obsessed with the idea that they might find in some document the 'slam dunk' quote that will somehow alter the fact that the constitution is--for all its quality--an ambiguous document. The number of areas where it is unclear (particularly in areas like war power) nearly match those where it is explicit. The second ammendment is one of those unclear points. Is it an individual right? A state right? How important is the militia clause? What constitutes a militia? None of these questions has a diffinitive answer.

Here is the reality: The meaning of consitution is, was, and always will be contested. Constitutional interpretation is not an act of Hermeneutics it is a political contest. Some time your side will win, sometimes it won't!

[Torie]

The 2nd amendment is actually not that clear John. Long legal tomes have been written about its ambiguities. SCOTUS could go either way on it.

Regarding the NRA's jewel in the crown, the word "keep," some read "keep and bear" conjunctively, rather than disjuntively. Even if read disjunctively, Garry Wills in his book "A Necessary Evil," wrote thusly:

"The private ownership schoold cotinues to think that plural "arms" means nothing but a singular "gun" for each individual, that every militiaman has his own gun, and that 'keep arms' would be restricted to storing the gun at home. If the Congress had meant anything so outlandish, it could with greate verbal economy have said 'keep at home and bear ... .' But it would have collapsed with laughter at its own absurdity. The militias had common stores of arms - not only guns but bayonets, artillery, ammunition, flags, drums, and all the arma (equipage) of war."

"History, philology, and logic furnish no solid basis for thinking the Second Amendment has anything to do with the private ownership of guns."

The dirty little secret frankly, is that no one really knows what the 2nd Amendment text means exactly, or was meant to mean. Thus SCOTUS has wide latitude here.

And there you have it.