Basic English grammar is actually ambiguous. Does "the People" mean "the People as a group" or "each of the People"? In other words is it a communal right or an individual one?
Nobody takes the time to write down or make a big fuss about a settled question...
And the point is that the understanding of what a milita was, how it worked, and the fact that it was a system that had been in place for close to a thousand years. (Having been created by Alfred the Great for defense against the Vikings.)
There is no direct equivalent in the American declarations to the selective Protestant “subjects” invoked in the Bill of Rights of 1689...
I would hope not, given that it's always been a settled question that your religion in this country isn't something the government is allowed to infringe upon, and furthermore, arguments of "legislative Supremacy" disappear when you actually read the bill of rights in order, as the First Amendment reads,
No, it hasn't "always been settled". In fact 1689 was long before the USA existed, and while British colonies then allowed freedom of religion, all but Pennsylvania had official state churches with government support. And within living memory, many of the colonies had had restrictions on what religions were allowed. It was therefore by no means automatic that laws passed in the New World at that point would not follow the British precedent.
Furthermore the British had good reason to have that religious test. At the time Catholic doctrine supported the murder of excommunicated monarchs, they kept track of who they believed the rightful monarch of England was (never the one that the English believed to be their monarch), and the English believed in the truth of a variety of plots both real (Guy Fawkes) and imagined (the starting of the Fire of London) by Catholics bent on overthrowing the English monarchy.
Therefore allowing weapons for Catholics rather reasonably could lead to the destabilization of the government.
The subject of the 2nd Amendment has always been the People. The militia part of the statement cannot standalone as a substantive independent clause, therefore it is a qualifier of the primary independent clause, namely, that that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The militia is not the one being granted an immunity to infringement of a right. It's a part of a supportive reason for the explicit grant of immunity to infringement to the right held by the People.
And if you don't think the Founders weren't writing that with the idea that what they wrote down wouldn't eventually turn itself into a tyranny that would need to be violently upset by the People, to whom was recognized in the Declaration of Independendence to hold the absolute right of revocation of consent to be governed, and the right to assemble and replace such form of government that successfully provides them service, relief and defense, then I think accusations of naivete or misunderstanding may need to be contemplated whilst staring into a mirror.
And even that brief brings into question motivations. Or particular bias for one interpretation or another.
Note this gem.
>The fact that references to the keeping of firearms are so few and terse, or that the modern academic controversy over the Second Amendment has been forced to squeeze so much modern interpretive blood from so few evidentiary turnips, is itself an indicator of how minor a question this was at the time.
I reject this implication. Nobody takes the time to write down or make a big fuss about a settled question, and it was clear that, yes, many were worried about the details of how military might would be structured; but no one was seriously prepared to say "Golly gee, let's let the government decide whether or not I have the right to own a particular machine that makes me a political obstacle to whatever abuses they may want to perpetrate whilst in office."
Also, you have to take into account the fact that jurisprudence is constrained by the principle of least action, especially when dealing with high level fundamental rights.
Considering the outright rejection of British authority, and the adoption of firearm culture in the United States to the current day, I have great difficulty taking anyone who points at Heller seriously.
But hey, let's dig into some of these.
>This was “indeed, a publick allowance under due restraints, of the natural right of resistance and self- preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”
Note afterwards the copious backpedaling on the quote with extensive reference to every other potentially limiting part of the argument but no reference to "when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression".
This being British, that isn't necessarily surprising. To an American, however, that last part is the far more important part.
Here's another tidbit.
>There is no direct equivalent in the American declarations to the selective Protestant “subjects” invoked in the Bill of Rights of 1689...
I would hope not, given that it's always been a settled question that your religion in this country isn't something the government is allowed to infringe upon, and furthermore, arguments of "legislative Supremacy" disappear when you actually read the bill of rights in order, as the First Amendment reads,
>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Second then read with the first as context,
>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.
The implication is carried through that just as the Government, through the mechanism that is Congress is prohibited from passing a law which violates the rights enumerated in the first Amendment, so too is it prohibited in legislating those rights secured by subsequent ones.
I'll keep reading this, but I'm not having much trouble challenging assertions or interpretations I'm pulling out of this; I'm just lacking in that unfortunately I wasn't around to argue with these gentlemen when it mattered, and am now stuck with people trying to shove it down my throat as to why they are right and I should be happy and thankful for being enlightened as to why my rights are being infringed upon.