Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: The meaning of the Second Amendment (One Perspective) [View all]hansberrym
(1,571 posts)in ways that were outside of militia duty such as hunting and self defense?
James Wilson on the right to bear arms in PA const. as self defense.
Mr. Sherman during debates on first militia act describing the right to bear arms in decidedly individual terms, in defense of self and property.
John Adams in his Defense of the Constitutrions of the Untied States. (private self defense)
And lesser know figures like Coxe (their private arms) and Whitehead (Address of PA Minority),
The difficulty for your side is that you are trying to make the exclusively for service in organized state militia argument (I know, it is not you, its those other guys).
What do you do with evidence that supports self defense?
What do you do with the early state court decisions?
What do you do with the fact that there was no one saying that the RKBA is exclusively for militia service? This is the main contention of the the Heller dissenters-that the right to bear arms was understood to mean only for militia serice -and yet they could not find a single source from the founding era stating that position.
When a theory doesn't fit the facts, what ought to change?