New bill could force states to allow visiting gun owners to pack heat without a permit

[needledriver]

40. Did you read your own post?

I did not insist that the right to keep and bear arms is limited to the arms available when the Constitution was written,

Then why were you blathering on about Swiss air rifles?

And don't try to trot out that canard about the Swiss air rifle -a rifle that needs to be elevated to a vertical position to reload is no more a semi-automatic weapon that a lever action rifle. An "arm" at that time was single shot, muzzle loaded or a air rifle that was "repeating", but required so much skill to use and maintain that it was not practical. There was simply no contemporary technology that allowed a shot to be fired with a trigger pull, then another shot with nothing more than another trigger pull.

You mean besides a flintlock double barreled shotgun? Whatever. You wrote a pretty well done analysis of the limitations of 18th century firearms technology. What was your point if not to imply that the olde timely guys in powdered wigs who scratched out the Constitution with quill pens on laid paper couldn't possibly have imagined the awesome terrifying destructive power of a 30 megawatt palm blaster that can cut buildings in half? Or something like that. I kind of lost track of what you were driving at.

I called out your ridiculous assertion that the 2nd requires people to keep a semi or full automatic weapon. The authors had no idea what either of those were,

Well, duh.

and were not requiring anyone to keep or bear arms.

Exactly. The people are not required to keep and bear arms. BUT, at least according to your interpretation of the 2nd amendment, if you are in a well regulated militia, you need to keep and bear an arm suitable for militia service.

Your statement "So, membership in the Militia would require that I not own an "assault weapon" (semi automatic tactical sporting rifle) but an actual assault rifle (fully automatic hand held machine gun)" has nothing at all to do with the 2nd amendment.

Well, if you insist that the 2nd amendment has a prerequisite of militia service in order to keep and bear arms, then it follows that at least one of the arms you must keep and bear must be suitable for militia service. The militia of the 18th Century were armed with firelocks more or less identical to those of the regular military - the arms suitable for the militia service at the time. Fast forward to the 21st Century and it stands to reason that the militia would be armed with firearms suitable for militia service, in this case select fire assault rifles. You can't have it both ways. If you have to be in the militia to keep and bear arms you have to be able to keep and bear arms suitable for 21st Century militia service.

I also pointed out that your notion that the militia clause is but one example of the right to keep and bear arms is false. You have avoided defending your position on that. Can you cite another example? Or are these other examples just ignoring parts that you don't want applied?

Sigh. This is too long to cut and paste, but if you want a thoughtful legal opinion from people who have no particular political axe to grind, please read:
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm

The simple fact is the militia clause of the 2nd amendment is *a* justification for the right to keep and bear arms, but is by no means the *only* justification.