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The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with you.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, 478 F. 3d 370 (U.S. 2008) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html, the court held that the Second Amendment does guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected with militia service. In particular, the District of Columbia's law banning possession of usable handguns in the home for self-defense violated the Constitution.

In McDonald v. City of Chicago, 567 F. 3d 856 (U.S. 2010) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1521.ZO.html, the court held that the right of self-defense in the Second Amendment is a fundamental right and its guarantees are applicable to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Legislation similar to that in Heller was struck down as unconstitutional.

I encourage you to read both opinions (and the dissents), even if they are laden with constitutional legalese and references to language from hundred-year-old opinions. You can argue all you want about your own opinions, but the opinions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land and are binding on every other court in the United States.




I'm aware the Supreme Court disagrees. The Heller opinion was written by Justice Scalia, who could have opened a Waffle House with the number of flip-flops of historical revisionism he went through in order to justify decisions which just coincidentally agreed with his personal political views. And while it is enforceable, it is neither right nor historically correct to find an individual right in the Second Amendment, and I hope that within my lifetime a better-composed Court will agree.


I'm sure that those opposed to gay marriage and abortion are hoping the court will change and support more limited historical views as well, but the court's recent substantive due process decisions have taken a flexible view of history and generally moved towards ensuring more freedom, not less. "Deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" doesn't meen what it used to.




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