point taken.
-js

Great article Steve, as an early American history teacher it is refreshing to see a real perspective on the topics rather than a watered down, rah rah sis boom bah version presented by our textbooks.

On the broader point of using the Framers’ Intent to determine what the Constitution means, Steve, I couldn’t agree with you more. “Half the time they didn’t agree on their intent, and the other half of the time they weren’t very good about making their intent clear.” Indeed. And they were not all the copious note-takers that Madison was! I’m pretty sure he wasn’t speaking for everyone.

Going back to Heller again, and I wish I could remember where I read this, apparently some of the historical data that the majority relied upon was either inaccurate, or taken out of context, or both. In other words, Scalia ought to have left history for the historians - but of course originalists can’t do that!

Finally, I’m no Constitutional Law scholar, but as an attorney, I know that the meaning of a word frequently depends on what my client’s best interests require. So yeah, words can definitely mean whatever we want them to.

I am glad you are blogging on this topic, it is one I have been thinking about a lot lately for several reasons. I am by no means a constitutional expert let alone an expert on the second amendment, but as I understand the issue, the disagreement, between gun control advocates and the anti-control crowd is, as you pointed out, whether the amendment refers to the state’s right to maintain a militia, or an individual’s right to own a gun. It seems as though the Supreme Court very recently ruled in favor of the individual right. Fine.

The question I have for the anti-control crowd, is why do you seem to oppose any kind of regulations on gun ownership? Whether, you interpret the amendment to be speaking of state’s rights or individual rights, the rationale for the right seems to be the necessity of a “well-regulated militia”. Doesn’t the well-regulated part explicitly allow for regulation of some kind? Yet, it seems that the anti-control crowd interprets every attempt at regulation as an infringement of the right. One would think that rational individuals would agree on the necessity of gun control, but that is rarely what happens in practice. Can an anti-control advocate provide an example of any reasonable level of control that they would find acceptable?

Also, George Will, in this Sunday’s Washington Post, wrote about an article in the Virginia Law Review authored by conservative judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit. Interestingly, Judge Wilkinson argues that District of Columbia v. Heller was wrongly decided and even more interestingly, it was wrongly decided for the same reason Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided (in his opinion). The link to Will’s Post article is below.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112102653.html

-js