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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm missing something, but I'm not sure what. In my view, the Second Amendment does not protect a right to carry firearms for people who are not in a militia.
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I understand your view, but I'm trying to figure out how you get there. Your view makes sense with respect to the prohibition on the federal government from infringing on the right to bear arms, because it assumes state regulation of militias. But I don't follow how that applies once the 2nd amendment is applied to the states.
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That makes sense with a contract, where there is a Parole Evidence Rule,* and other law establishing background presumptions that the parties can build on. That backdrop just isn't there with the Constitution. I don't personally subscribe slavishly to original intent, but that's because you have years of judicial decisions interpreting the document. To say that you're going to interpret the Constitution according to its words, stripped from their original context and without regard to what courts in the interim have made of them, strikes me as lunacy. Though potentially interesting as an academic matter.
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I don't view them as that different. A contract is a memorialization of an agreement, which is the product of negotiation. Same with the constitution.
