A new spin on the old Constitution « Bookworm Room

re: "...On March 7, 2006, the Federal District Court issued a 75 page long opinion holding that the Washington, D.C. law violates the Second Amendment (that bit about not infringing the People’s right to keep and bear arms). /And here’s how the New York Times characterized the court’s ruling: /Interpreting the Second Amendment broadly, a federal appeals court in Washington yesterday struck down a gun control law in the District of Columbia that bars residents from keeping handguns in their homes. (Emphasis mine.) /Now, much as it always pained me to admit when I was a card-carrying, gun-control liberal, there’s no “broad” reading necessary to conclude that a law making gun ownership entirely ineffectual does, in fact “infringe” upon “the right of the People to keep and bear arms.” The only way to get around this language is to change the language, not to try to nitpick it and narrow it to death. /And before those of you start making the old argument that guns are only allowed for a “militia,” and that the National Guard is our militia, hold your breath. The only way to harmonize “militia” and “People” in the Second Amendment is to envision a situation in which people have the ability, because they are armed, instantly to form citizen’s brigade separate from the United States Military. Nor is this careless drafting. (As if the Founders were ever careless about these things.) That the Founders viewed these citizens’ militias as entirely separate from forces under Government aegis (including the National Guard) they would not have drafted the Fifth Amendment as they did...