Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby
Actually no, it bestows those rights on a well-regulated Militia.
Are you a member of the Militia? No? Then it's not a "right," for you. Are you wanting to be a member of the Militia? Then great. You pass. If you want to possess a firearm but are not willing to be a member of a well-regulated Militia, willing and able and prepared to fight against a tyrannical government, then you are asking for a privilege and not a constitutional right.
So prove that you a) know the law, b) can see your target with or without glasses. c) know how to use the weapon properly.
Are you saying you shouldn't have to prove any of those three things? If that's the case, let's just arm every man, woman, and child - if they're capable of holding a weapon, then they get to have one. Don't bother teaching them how to use it - because knowing how isn't required by the Constitution. Of course - ammunition is also not a Constitutional right. They can have firearms - but nowhere in the Constitution does it say those firearms can be loaded.
You want to pick nits? I can pick them all day.
Edited because I had a brain-poop and swapped out "well-armed" with what should've been "well-regulated." And by regulated - they meant "controls." It meant that even the constitution agrees that there should be some CONTROLS over how and who and under what circumstances a person gets to enjoy that right to bear arms.
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From Reason.com, Brian Doherty | From the December 2019 issue:
The structure of the Second Amendment has invited decades of dueling interpretations. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," it says, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The part of the amendment that could be its own stand-alone sentence—the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed—is known as the "operative clause." The well regulated Militia part—the prefatory clause—is understood by enthusiastic gun regulators as defining the only reason for preserving the right to keep and bear arms (as opposed to one of the reasons). Anyone who is not a member of a well-regulated militia would have no such right.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in Heller, thought it made no sense to read the prefatory clause that way, because that would essentially nullify the direct and clear meaning of the operative clause. While the prefatory clause could give insight into some of the specifics of how to apply the operative clause, he argued, it could not make the right to arms contingent on militia service.