Good news, for once, from Washington as the US Supreme Court looks likely to uphold a ruling that the District of Columbia’s blanket prohibition on owning handguns is unconstitutional. Frankly, people, I’m confused. That is to say, I’m confused that there’s ever been any confusion over the meaning of the Second Amendment. It all hinges upon the interpretation of the provision that:
“a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick says,
The constitutional question is whether that first clause limits the right to bear arms to a citizen militia, or whether the militia language represents a bit of constitutional phlegm standing between you and your full-throated right to bear arms.
Really? I should have thought it simple: how can you have a militia at all unless the people have the right to bear arms in the first place? Otherwise what will they fight with? And doesn’t it seem unlikely that the Founding Fathers intended for guns to b kept in state arsenals? That being so isn’t it pretty obvious -to the point of being simple common sense – that the private ownership of guns shall not be infringed?
Of course I’m not a lawyer and perhaps this is a simplistic view.
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