Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick
Yes, but let’s play Devils Advocate here and definitely say millions of Americans interpret the 2nd Amendment as just saying, the same, that it means, the right to bear arms.
That said, there have been 2 recent Supreme Court cases involving the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, while the court overturned blanket bans on handgun ownership in homes, in Chicago and Washington DC, the highest court of the land did prescribe limitations…
” the right to keep and bear arms is not ‘a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.’”
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Indeed … and this is where it gets really tricky, because the precise regulation of handguns is carried out at state level, with the Supreme Court stepping in only when asked to. That recent judgment does in some way at least acknowledge that the right is conditional. Given that the condition, as stated in the constitution, is the need for a well regulated militia, the court must presumably have had that in mind. The question is, exactly how does the modern Supreme Court construe the need for a well regulated militia? Clearly the keeping of a gun at home is not directly connected to organised territorial defence because the States now all have their own uniformed National Guard. I can only imagine that they see the possession of guns in the hands of citizens as some sort of theoretical last line of defence. That still makes a lot of American gun culture perplexing to say the least.