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“[The Heller decision] is an embarrassment to historically informed constitutional interpretation. The idea that the Framers would have thought it should be applied to allow private citizens to carry concealed handguns isn’t intellectually plausible. Clinton should have said so.

bfg-long-logo-blue-jpg-220x39At the very least, she should not have conceded that the Constitution properly interpreted requires an individual right to bear arms. It protects the collective right to a state-run, state-regulated militia. And sincerely original justices would overturn the Heller case.” – Noah Feldman in Clinton’s Missed Opportunity on Guns [via bloomberg.com]

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    • And so it begins; this verbal assault on the legitimacy of the Heller decision. I expect the other usual suspects to chime in with their own ill conceived rationales for its death as The Hag assumes office. Just as I expect The Hag to appoint a fifth anti-Constitutional radical to the Supreme Court. And, just as I expect the Court to overturn Heller. No matter that Heller was properly decided and supported by the history and clear language of the Second Amendment.

      • “And so it begins; this verbal assault on the legitimacy of the Heller decision.”

        Indeed. The next 4 years will be an exhaustive fight against the MSM’s coordinated onslaught with the Executive branch to overturn Heller.

  1. And I would challenge Mr. Feldman, as I do anyone who believes that the 2nd Amendment protects a “collective” right, is to name another, any other, “collective” right. He can’t. Because collective rights do not exist.

      • Da! Now Kommissar round up evil Republican and Capitalist and put in jail in Siberia. AK 47 for Socialist only! Now, where vodka?

    • It’s especially laughable to think the Constitution would specify a government “right” — governments have power, people have rights, and people’s rights are protections from government powers.

      What next, a government right to buy water for its soldiers?

    • And I would challenge this back-side-of-the-bell-curve idiot to read the Declaration of Independence, which is the founding legal document of the United States, and therefore the basis for the Constitution, and the context of the 2nd Amendment. If Feldman is actually literate, he will find many rights mentioned in the Declaration, but only one DUTY:
      “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their DUTY, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ”

      Do these leftist idiots have any idea of where they are going with their desire for a return to serfdom? Have none of them read the history of France from 1789 to 1792?

    • What I do not understand is how he can say that there is an individual right and a collective right in the same breath. Which is it? I suppose that the argument is that there is an individual right to bear arms so that one may serve in the (collective) militia, such as the Heller dissent suggests, i.e., that the right to bear arms is to be exercised in the context of service in a state militia, hence (so the argument goes) giving effect to the opening clause of the Second Amendment (A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state…). Thus construed, there is no right to bear arms outside the scope of militia service. I don’t have time now to detail the basic logical flaw in this argument.

  2. The Founders may not have liked “concealed pistols”, but they supported the open carry of military rifles by citizens. Don’t you agree, Mr. Feldman?

    • The Second Amendment refers specifically to “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms…”

      It makes no mention whatever of what arms the people may or may not bear, where they may or may not bear them, nor how. It is another of those Liberal semantic tricks where they attempt to equate the 2A with firearms rather than all arms generally. In that manner the SCOTUS did in fact get Heller wrong – the amendment specifically says “…shall not be infringed.” but SCOUTS could not bring themselves to admit that this precluded “reasonable regulations”.

      In other news, have you seen the types of pistols available in 1776? Good luck concealing one of those. People who wanted concealed weapons chose a knife or a sword cane, I expect.

      • There were plenty of concealable pistols, usually small derringers in .32 cal. This is why at least one state early on banned the concealed carry of firearms, a law that survived constitutional challenge in state court. By the time of the subsequent bans, there were a variety of small, concealable cap and ball pistols, and those laws too survived challenge, as long as the right to carry arms openly was preserved. This is all detailed in Scalia’s opinion.

        • Thank you. There prevails a longstanding scepticism towards the concealed carrying of weapons in the Anglosaxon common law tradition (as shown by solidified case law dating back to England). I don’t think it is difficult to argue that at the time of the Founding, pretty much everyone understood that the right that “shall not be infringed” is that of carrying arms openly, hence no further clarification with regards to the manner of bearing weapons was deemed necessary.

          On the question of what types of firearms are protected under the Second Amendment, the Heller decision remained (apart from its – frankly: suboptimal – common use test it gave to the world) silent for the most part. We know from Justice Scalia’s dissent regarding SCOTUS’ denial of certiorari in Kolbe vs. Hogan that he and Justice Thomas were convinced AR-15 rifles were protected weapons under the 2nd Amendment, thus courts would be well advised to read the Heller decision in that light. In a perfect world.

    • Of military grade weapons, no less.

      You mean, you don’t walk about with a select fire, 14″ barrel M4 slung across your chest…

      How un-American of you.

    • Well, no. Because he is a willfully ignorant fool who asserts that the second amendment grants a collective privilege, rather than protecting an inherent, pre-existing, individual right.

  3. I guess that only States have the right to be secure in “their” effects.

    (I had trouble wording that sentence.)

      • +++ and ^+++
        Great point, and the “construction” of the thing is again demonstrated as complex, layered, and extremely important.

        The Declaration of Independence Paragraph 2 begins “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights.Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, . . .”. (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript)

        The Declaration does not cite any other supporting, bridging, defining, or explaining document or authority. Therefore, I believe that IF ONE IS BEING HONEST [when cooked down to the kernel] the Declaration of Independence essentially says;

        NOTHING RECITED ANYWHERE = What I need to justify my assertion of my rights and prosecution of them.

        WHETHER OR NOT the “government” we have formed continues, or in it’s continuance, is favorable to all parties.

        T H E R E F O R E BE ADVISED:

        NOTHING RECITED ANYWHERE = What I will cite if I think you are an oppressive (We The People) and Tyrannical government and I come to F your sh_t up.

        Further – No subsequent NOTICE is required. No pamplets, no emails, no texts, no change in facial expression.

        And I can only safely assume the same from you (fellow citizens).

        • Let me stand partially corrected, with respect to my “notice” provisions. The Declaration does recite [1st Para]:
          “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ”

          Let’s leave that for the evil (D) to squabble over as to whether they are entitled to notice, whether constructive notice should not be assumed by the posts on TTAG, their reluctance to do gun control on anything but a piecemeal basis. . .

  4. Awesome. The Bill of Rights wanted to make sure, in a list of things the government specifically could not do to limit the freedom of the citizens, to protect its own right to organize militia.

    I think they’ve given up pretending to be anything other than totalitarians.

  5. Some of the founders would have possibly agreed. Of course, they’d be all for the unlicensed carry of handguns and M-4’s. Is that what you would like, professor? I can read too.

  6. “historically informed constitutional interpretation”
    I believe that would be the pro-gun perspective dont you? History kills Communism.

    Hence why it says Arms. Even though I imagine flintlock pistol carry was common anyway. Because the founders were dudes who very much understood what dealing with paintywaste Noah Feldman’s of their day were like, although I imagine they might still save a tar and feathering for a chode such as this.

    • Because the founders were dudes who

      just finished fighting a war for freedom and sovereignty that saw its opening shots fired when the oppressive Crown’s military / government attempted to seize a local armory.

      I think the Founders knew far, far more about how the Second Amendment was not about a Statist collective right than anyone living today.

      The problem all these moron “collective right” advocates have in rationalizing their claim is that they have to take the Second Amendment out of the historical context in which it was written. That’s the only way they can bend it into a collective right.

      Well, that and they ignore a whole heap of writing on the subject written by the people that wrote the thing.

    • I believe these Feldman types were more often than not on the losing side of pistol duels. Before that rapiers. Before that a club or sharp stick. Outlaw anything that you aren’t good at and you become a real man. “Look baby, nobody orders a mocha soy latte better than me right?” Makes you wonder how these type of guys still exist? Look at England, bans on sharpened metal. Really, next it will be grapefruit spoons. Who procreates with these shaven chest fops? It must come down to junk DNA or something. It boggles the mind I tell ya!

  7. The key words in his “argument” are “properly interpreted”. He wishes that the Constitution was a living document subject to the whims of the elites. It isn’t. He’s mistaken.

    • Interestingly, that exact same postmodernist thinking has entered at least some American Protestant churches as well. They want the Bible to be open to re-interpretation in regard to cultural changes.

      So, rather than view the Bible as the divine word of God and subsume themselves to divine wisdom, they seek to elevate themselves and their contemporary interpretation as superior.

      I think this is an important trend. When core documents, beliefs and traditions are laid to waste solely to appear ‘modern,’ social glue erodes with it. We are seeing the effects of such destruction in things like the loss of family and birth rates below replacement levels.

      In short, I think these attacks have been deliberate because they know that making interpretations ‘fluid’ ultimately weakens the document or idea.

  8. Of course the BOR only applies to the state. That’s why they have armed security and want to disarm you. That’s why they get passes for federal crimes and you don’t. That’s why they get all butthurt when we read their email but we’re “with the terrorists” if we object to the state reading our email.

    I’d like to see a political add listing the BOR and showing all the ways the dems are killing each amendment one by one. Of course the Republicans won’t run such an add because they love raping rights just as much.

  9. So it doesn’t protect an individual right to bear arms, it protects the States’ right to have their individual citizens keep personally owned firearms at home? Because that’s what the state militias were, historically.

  10. ave we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress? Of what service would militia be to you when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not provide them.
    — Patrick Henry
    An instance within the memory of some of this house will show us how our militia may be destroyed. Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliment was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.
    — George Mason
    No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state…Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.
    — Richard Henry
    The President, and government, will only control the militia when a part of them is in the actual service of the federal government, else, they are independent and not under the command of the president or the government. The states would control the militia, only when called out into the service of the state, and then the governor would be commander in chief where enumerated in the respective state constitution.
    — Alexander Hamilton
    An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics — that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe…
    — James Madison
    Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.
    — John F. Kennedy
    I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.
    — George Mason
    A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms.
    — Richard Henry Lee
    Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.
    — Patrick Henry
    Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
    — Noah Webster
    The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States… Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America.
    — Gazette of the United States Source; October 14, 1789
    The militia is a voluntary force not associated or under the control of the States except when called out; [ when called into actual service] a permanent or long standing force would be entirely different in make-up and call.
    — Alexander Hamilton

    “Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”

    –Hubert Humphrey, Democrat when it actually meant something and didn’t mean socialist communist panderer to racists and the lazy Takers.

    • “Ah yes, the ol’ state granting itself the power to own guns gag…”

      Analogies of foxes guarding the hen-house comes to mind…

  11. The British seizure of firearms and ammunition from the colonists–confiscation, if you will–was what resulted in the “shot heard ’round the world” in Lexington in 1775. The start of the First American Revolution. That was a major factor in the inclusion of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Now comes the new Redcoats. OK, Hillary, you just send out your confiscation troops, and the next sound you hear may be the start of the Second American Revolution. Some of us are old enough that we think it would be better to go down fighting the New Fascists than to live under an oppressive puppet regime controlled by Bloomberg and Soros.

  12. One supposes that he has no idea why it wasn’t worded, “the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

    • So much this. If the framers meant the 2A to be about the right to form a militia, wouldn’t it be worded something like ,”The right to the people to form a militia under supervision of the state shall not be infringed.”

  13. “It protects the collective right to a state-run, state-regulated militia.”

    Exactly! The government was giving themselves the right to collectively own firearms. As governments do. I can’t think of any which do that, mind you, but it’s absolutely the reason.

    Moron.

    • How would the government ever obtain firearms without the 2nd amendment?? I feel so bad for all those other poor countries with their unarmed governments.

  14. Yep, another lying sack of excrement Democrat Party Operative. He knows what he says is a lie, and we know that he is doing it to usurp the Constitution and the American people. I believe that the framers’ of the Constitution would be considering charges of treason against this bozo.

    • “He knows what he says is a lie”

      To me, this is one of the most disturbing things of the recent (last year or two) trend in political rhetoric.

      They KNOW it is a lie, but they say it anyway. That’s some scary level arrogance from the anti-gunners in particular and the Statist Progressives/Marxists in general.

      They really do believe that they control the narratives that well.

      • Unfortunately, many people in our country do not want to know the truth.

        In a recent conversation, the leftist in the crowd rejected every fact that I brought to the conversation. I offered them a chance to see proof that their beliefs were wrong and based on lies, and they didn’t want to see it. I told them where to go to get hard evidence, and they would not go. It is frustrating. Benjamin Franklin said that “Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords.” When Hillary orders the formerly free people in America to destroy their firearms, naturally, I will not comply. This is getting me to think that if these people vote for Hillary and she crashes the country, maybe they have predestined themselves to plow our fields. Why should I risk my life to fight for their freedom when they attack me for it? I know, this sounds like a bad thought. We are supposed to be better than the tyranny these leftist want to inflict on us. But still, what they are doing is despicable, and frankly, I want justice.

  15. Who the heck is that guy that what he has to say means everyone else just bows down and does it? Another elitist statist, it would seem.

  16. Well there is the distressing matter of all that punctuation, which in legal documents actually HAS meaning unlike words and law and just about everything else currently. But it must be admitted that our metro-sexual hero is doing little more than following his mistresses’ dictate in that the judiciary should be partisan and not simply interpret the law. That way you can do away with all that tiresome research and precedent and actual erudition and go find some ‘Wise fill-in-the blank’ place holder to parrot whatever you want them to say.

  17. THe Heller decision IS a TERRIBLE decision. It’s what, 14,000 words? And all to do one thing, and that is to declare that current federal gun laws are constitutional. You have the a right to own a gun, and the government has the right to take it away, and tell you what type you can’t have. That’s the Heller decision in a nutshell. The status quo is constitutional, so shut up gun owners, and lefties you can’t ban their handguns, but don’t worry we’ll keep banning the automatics. Oh, and shut up gun people and fill out this paperwork for a muffler. And pay tribute. And hey lefties you can still ban standard magazines. Oh, and you can totally nerf the guns themselves. And you can mandate safety classes. And you can mandate gun insurance. And you can take it all away without convicting them of anything, just on suspicion. So, yeah, according to Heller you have the 2nd Amendment right to have your gun taken away.

    • Hey, we’ve got a live one here! Don’t just look at Heller, look at how NRA betrayed Otis McDonald. Attorney Alan Gura toiled in obscurity on 2nd Amendment cases, then NRA butted in and destroyed his work, selling out every gun owner in America right along with Otis.

      Want to know what NRA is really all about? Take a look at Illinois, the last state to adopt concealed carry, and I use the term loosely. NRA didn’t put a dime into Illinois for forty years, they wrote it off. We were stuck with turds like Richard Pearson at ISRA, the NRA state affiliate, telling us, “it isn’t the right time” for concealed carry, circa 2000.

      Grassroots gun people introduced Otis McDonald to Alan Gura. After the U.S. Federal court in Chicago totally overturned Illinois’ UUW ban on concealed weapons in a surprise ruling in Dec. 2012 (Moore v. Madigan) based on the McDonald decision, NRA state lobbyist Todd Vandermyde bent over backwards to put Duty to Inform w/ criminal penalties in state Rep. Brandon Phelps “NRA backed” carry bill. The anti-gun IL Chiefs of Police wanted DTI in the NRA bill so they could set up and murder armed citizens like Philando Castile in Minnesota, then get away with it legally.

      Alan Gottlieb and 2nd Amendment Foundation funded the McDonald case. NRA, Inc. wanted nothing to do with it. Then NRA hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement to barge into the McDonald case at the last minute and steal ten minutes from Alan Gura’s thirty minute oral argument time in front of SCOTUS.

      Look at the quality of the people at the bottom of the pile like Alan Gura and Alan Gottlieb, they do the heavy lifting. Then Chris Cox & Chuck Cunningham at NRA/ILA deliberately let their contract lobbyist Todd Vandermyde betray Otis McDonald and every other gun owner in Illinois to be set up and murdered by police criminals and police impersonators with Duty to Inform.

      NRA, Inc. is a corrupt rotten front infested with traitors, scum, and rats. The problem with gun rights in America isn’t Hillary Clinton, it’s traitors and sellouts paid by NRA to backstab their own members.

  18. The “collective” right of a government to own and use arms to defend itself is self evident and requires no enumerated right. Therefore, we can deduce that the 2A must mean people beyond that of the government.

  19. Always the bait and switch to “collective”, “greater good”, or the “herd”. This is the language being used to (very successfully)attack individual liberties.

    • How many atrocities have been committed ‘for the greater good’?

      The United States is unique in recognizing INDIVIDUAL freedom, at least in its idealized state. It is not for the government to decide that even one person be unjustly harmed for the benefit of the many.

  20. This guy wrote this not because he thinks only the state should have guns, but to push the idea Hillary Clinton is moderate on guns and believes in the second amendment. Readers get the impression the author is a crazy anti gunner, but Hillary really is pro second amendment. The NRA and gun owners are nuts for thinking Hillary is against them. That’s the authors intent.

    He is not just another example of low intelligence high education the left is known for. Closed minded people that can’t admit they are wrong.

    • No, he is just pissed because at the end of the day Hillary wants votes more than to grab guns. I’m not saying that she would not pass just about every anti-gun law she can, but I honestly think if the only way that she could become president was to kiss the boots of the NRA, she would do it.

  21. The thing that I find interesting about this guy and his argument is that he had his chance, when Heller was moving up the court system, and was before the Supreme Court. If he had the facts behind him, I have little doubt that the leftist Justices would have picked them up for their dissent. But, we are essentially left with the research of Eugene Volokh, Clayton Cramer, et al., showing that firearms were common in colonial times, that the right was understood to be an individual right, the Militia Clause is merely precatory, etc. Indeed, Heller effectively disposed of this guy’s argument with the later point – that the Militia Clause merely stated an intent, a wish, a justification for the operative clause (the right to keep and bear arms). The thing is, the Heller decision is so long because the individual rights argument is so well documented there, historically and linguistically. I might look to him as a credible expert on this subject when he has managed a small fraction of the published articles on the 2nd Amdt. that the scholars quoted by the majority have produced on the subject. Until then, he is nothing more than a dilettante.

  22. This fellow is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. Yet, he’s laughably ignorant of all historically informed interpretation of the Constitution. He’s recklessly indignant toward individiual rights.

    These liberals can fabricate and individuate phony rights all day. Yet, they’re suddenly stymied by the prospect of recognizing an individual right to bear arms that is so obvious and inveterate, that it never occurred to the Framers that even 18th century uneducated farmers wouldn’t understand it, let alone a Harvard professor.

    Geez, if this is the quality of education that $60K per year buys at Harvard Law School these days, one might just be better off taking your J.D. from an unaccredited Internet law school where you can pay your tuition with a Groupon.

  23. Well, I suppose this prof of constitutional law is well positioned to propose an amendment fixing the misunderstandings.

    It should sail right thriugh, since vast majorities already think his way.

    I’ll wait.

  24. I agree. The Framers came from a culture that believed no honest man would have the need to conceal his pistol. He would openly carry it.

    • Especially the windbag named ” Publius” ESQ….. He announces that he’s “BLOCKING” Everyone who disagrees with him after he rails on them…. Total douche-bag; probably an Ivy Leaguer Law graduate…… Pretty soon he’ll be by himself in his sanctimonious echo chamber……

      • Oh sweet, Publius is there? He’s my favorite leftist douchebag, because he is the best living metaphor for the antigun movement: he says, “Let’s have a conversation”, then when PoG try to give him well written and intelligent conversation, he says “I don’t like yours facts” then blocks them. Anti gunners in a nut shell.

    • Realize that there is an industry of people paid to post on these forums to give the artificial appearance of support for certain agendas where little real support exists.

  25. Well at least we can squarely blame the Cuckservative RINO’s who have basically thrown their lot in with Hillary anyways, which pretty much guarantees the destruction of our 2nd amendment in the near future when she floods this country with a permanent consolidated voting base.

    Anybody that wants to vote Johnson better pull that thought from their mouth if they think it is a good idea. “Principles” are for suckers, and the Democrats have abandoned theirs ages ago.

  26. IMO people talk themselves into a corner with this whole collective right to an armed militia argument. Who makes up the militia? The average Joe. Where does a militia get its arms from? Whatever the average Joe brings with him. A militia is formed and armed by the individual.

  27. The truth is that the people do not possess any rights that they are willing to surrender. As George Orwell forecasted and Bill Clinton proved, once the political class can arbitrarily define the language, all argument is irrelevant.

    The only thing that IS relevant is decisive action because action puts an actual price on an unjust law that denies history, humanity and common sense.

    This is why during the American revolutionary period, the people responded with arms at Concord and Lexington. Their response was of course unlawful: They deliberately took up arms against the King and his lawful appointees to prevent them from completing his lawful order which was to confiscate their firearms, ammunition and rations. If they had chosen instead not to do so, there would have been no revolution and our rights as we understand them would have been exactly aligned with the current-day leftist interpretation of a right which is in fact, whatever the ruling class says that it is.

    Despite what the chattering class may say, we will likely soon be faced with a similar choice. History does not actually repeat itself, but it does often rhyme.

  28. Excerpt from the reviled SCOTUS decision, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857, on what could happen if Negroes were to be citizens (denied):

    The Court also presented a parade of horribles argument, based on the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV, listing what the Court considered to be the rights of citizens, and the inevitable and undesirable effects of granting Scott’s petition:
    “ It would give to persons of the negro race, …the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, …to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased …the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.[27]
    —-

    And while the court came to the wrong decision, the rights they so feared to apply to former slaves were in fact recognized at the time as belonging to all individual citizens.

  29. “The idea that the Framers would have thought it should be applied to allow private citizens to carry concealed handguns isn’t intellectually plausible.”

    Quite aside from his deliberate ignorance of the 2A’s history, I have to wonder if this dope has even read Heller (or even a short summary of it). Because the case had nothing to do with concealed carry. In fact, the Court engaged in some uncomfortable contortions to expressly state that the decision applies to guns in one’s home, and that it shouldn’t be taken to mean that any existing open or concealed carry prohibitions are unconstitutional.

    • He didn’t, or more likely he is just a flat out liar. Like i said in my comment bellow the law in question was about firearms having to be stored in an unusable condition in the home.

  30. He is just a damn liar. Heller was entirely about the Constitutionality of a jurisdiction effectively banning firearms for self defense in the home. The statute struck down concerned the requirement that all firearms had to be stored in an unusable condition in the home. Is concealed carry even mentioned anywhere in the decision?

  31. Is the term “the People” used anywhere else in the Bill of Rights used to describe a collective right? If so then the 1st and 4th are effectively useless to individuals as well.

  32. He believes the Second Amendment “protects the collective right to a state-run, state-regulated militia.”

    So in his view the authors of the Bill of Rights, which all involve the rights of the individual, specifically chose to exclude individual rights from the Second Amendment and reserve that right solely to the state.

    Granted, the 10th Amendment also gives rights to the state. But that Amendment gives rights to both the states and the people. In addition, that would require the authors to enumerate Amendments 1 and 3-9 for individuals and Amendment 2 and 10 for the state. That ordering makes no sense.

    The good thing is that by declaring the above, he will never be approved by the Senate if there is even one pro-2A senator left.

  33. Perhaps I missed something in the Heller decision but my understanding is that it had to do with an outright Pistol ban and safe storage requirements within one’s home. Was there any reference in Heller around concealed carry?

  34. If the framers knew what was going on in today’s government, they would likely be fighting to obtain legitimacy to carry and obtain firearms.

    • If the founders were here in the 21st century, a second Revolutionary War would have already been fought.

      There’s no way that they would have accepted the overreaching federal government that we have now.

  35. “It protects the collective right to a state-run, state-regulated militia.”

    Does this idiot realize what he just said?

    If this interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is adopted it could give the Noah Feldman’s of the world a real whiplash. Protects the collective right of a state-run, state-regulated militia. PROTECT FROM WHO? The Congress of the United States. They just told us that a state would have the Constitutional right to declare every citizen or legal alien of a state a member of that state’s militia (state regulated) and that the approved arms for a member of the militia is an AR-15 with 5 30 round magazines and a Glock 19 with 3 15 round magazines (state run), and the Feds wouldn’t have a means to interfere. (The Commerce Clause would be dead as concerned firearms and ammunition). The Law of Unintended Consequences would really bite them where it hurts. How long do you think it would take them to repeal this repudiation of Heller?

    I absolutely prefer a right to bear arms that would be universal and would protect all citizens. But if they repeal Heller and bring about this interpretation the people of the free states would really be at an advantage. The people of the statist regions: A majority of the people there elected those that disarmed them and they have to live with the consequences.

  36. Again, the Federalist papers and many letters from Madison exist explaining the meaning of the 2A. It is very clear if you do some basic research, unlike this turd. They act like the 2A is the only thing the founders wrote in the subject when there is a great deal of writing on the subject from them.

  37. “[Roe vs. Wade] is an embarrassment to historically informed constitutional interpretation. The idea that the Framers would have thought it should be applied to allow private citizens to kill unborn children isn’t intellectually plausible. Clinton should have said so.

    At the very least, she should not have conceded that the Constitution properly interpreted requires an individual right of choice. It protects the collective right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness via birth after conception. And sincerely original justices would overturn the case.”

    – Stupid shill that likes to pick and choose what rights and freedoms he thinks 320 million people should have.

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