The founders envisioned a nation of citizen-defenders equipped and trained to protect their homes, farms, and neighborhoods from incursion by enemies, foreign or domestic. The Constitution states that the right to keep and bear arms is a prerequisite for a well-regulated militia, not the other way around. And it draws on prevailing notions from English law at the time (the UK, like the USA, didn't start moving to abolish or restrict gun rights until the beginning of the 20th century or thereabouts). This is more than some old, unrelated law; it is the supreme law of the land. If you do not think that it is applicable in the modern era, the solution is to agitate for repeal of the 2A, not to pretend that it doesn't exist or has been outmoded and complain when people act like it still is valid, active, enforceable law.
I'm not even speaking as someone who favors guns. But the Constitution is what it is, and if we don't like it we change it. If the government can get away with ignoring the Second Amendment and deciding it's no longer relevant, think of what they might do to the First Amendment. Or the Fourth. Or the Fifth. Or the Eighth. Or the Thirteenth.
Get the picture?
It doesn't just state that the right to bear arms is a prerequisite for a well-regulated militia.
It also uses the need of a militia as the _justification_ for that right.
It says: "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."
This means that the right to bear arms is not an end in itself -- it's justified in as much as it's a first step to a well-regulated militia.
In an era without well-regulated citizen militias (except the National Guard, for which different guard laws apply anyway), there's no reason to hold the right to keep arms anymore.
So, yes, arms are a prerequisite to such militias -- but (the arms) are only asked to be respected as a right precisely because they are such a prerequisite -- and not for another reason.
Which makes the justification for guns and militias reciprocal. Without militias, and no role for them, no reason for the former either.
>But the Constitution is what it is, and if we don't like it we change it. If the government can get away with ignoring the Second Amendment and deciding it's no longer relevant, think of what they might do to the First Amendment. Or the Fourth. Or the Fifth. Or the Eighth. Or the Thirteenth.
I find keeping the "right to bear arms" in an era for which the justification for doing so given in the Constitution has expired, as the government already violating the spirit of the 2nd Amendment (to favor gun lobbies and such).
E.g. that reading of the 2A is a selective reading that upholds the letter while violating the spirit of it, from politically appointed and non impartial judges.
If what you say is true, and the militia is of no concern to us today, it should be easy enough to get an amendment passed that removes or curtails the right unconditionally protected by the 2A. It could even just be put out there and float around for as long as it takes the states to ratify it, like the 27th amendment did for centuries.
The process is there for a reason.
If you believe the comments and the code are out of sync, change one. There's a patch procedure built in. Changing the interpreter to make the output match what you think the comment is saying while leaving the actual instructions intact just increases (tech / legal) debt.
I am fine with separation of church and state, however the Constitution doesn't actually say that.
If we are to play contextual games (i.e. the militia context,) then that same contextualization would apply to the Church of England context of the first amendment.
As for our deference to this centuries old document: we do it because the Constitution is the only thing that overcomes the democratic will. When the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage as unconstitutional, the vast majority of Americans were opposed to it.
Yes and no.
"[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches..." can very reasonably be read as an expectation of privacy. "The government will not, without due cause, search your papers and effects" is a very fair paraphrasing.
If "expectation" is the criterion, how about actually asking people what they actually expect with a poll of sorts?
The whole "expectation of privacy" as a metric is bogus.
Then again, those are the same people who read gun laws regarding "militias" as valid for 20-21st century individuals (and I'm not saying this as someone anti-gun -- just that, if you like guns and want them, just pass a law saying that, not use some 3 century old unrelated law as an excuse with all the pomposity of the Supreme Court, as if some redneck with a liking for guns is part of a "well regulated militia").