quote:
From its inclusion in the Constitution in 1791 until 2008, it was not understood to give Americans a personal right to have a gun. And then it changed, in a profound way.

Prior to 2008, there was a public conversation – often, in academic writings funded by the National Rifle Association – about whether the Amendment should go beyond protecting the arming of state militias, to allow Americans to arm themselves for personal use.

The Supreme Court finally accepted that expanded view,

All of this is utter horseshite.

Declaring the Second Amendment to be an individual right was in no way a new interpretation or expansion. Heller was the first time the Court every looked at the issue. Different groups argued for years over the meaning but there was no serious state impingement on the ability to own guns until D.C. and Illinois started banning the ownership of handguns in the late 2000s. That was the first time the U.S. Supreme Court ever looked at the issue.

Now, if these guys want to argue that the right only belongs with members of the militia (known as the the Collective Right Argument) then they need to take a look at who was considered to be "militia" during the drafting of the Constitution. "Militia" was every able-bodied male. So according to their own argument, able-bodied men have the right to possess firearms to the exclusion of women. I'm sure that will go over well with the Feminist.

Or we could simply look at how the guy who wrote the Second Amendment explained it:

quote:
[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. - James Madison

Hell, it's on the very short list of things on which Hamilton and Madison agreed.

quote:
The constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. - Alexander Hamilton