You can pretend you’d know how the Founding Fathers would respond today for various issues, but it’s as absurd as if one were to speak for our dead relatives, making estimations on what someone would say hundreds of years ago…
“If personal gun ownership is a right, then make a case for it.”

First read; THE UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT, by J. Neil Schulman -

Then just deal with what they did say. It’s not necessary to go to “estimations” in this case.

“[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” — Zacharia Johnson (speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 25 June 1778)

* A well regulated Militia,
George Mason: “Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, except a few public officers.”

* being necessary to the security of a free State,
Patrick Henry: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.

* the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
Samuel Adams: “The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”

* shall not be infringed.
Thomas Jefferson: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

“…in the coming months the public will be told that the second item in a Bill of Rights written explicitly to pro tect individual liberties does not apply to individuals. In the reading of gun-control advocates, the Founders wrote the First Amendment to protect individual rights — then took a wide detour exempting individual rights in order to preserve only a collective right to state militias . . . then doubled back to the protection of individual rights for the rest of the amendments.

In this reading, “the people” means one thing in the First Amendment, something entirely different in the Second, and in the Fourth and Ninth Amendments reverts to the meaning used in the First. Even more oddly, in this reading the Founders used the term “the people” to refer to “the states” in the Second Amendment — but took pains in the Tenth Amendment to draw an explicit distinction between the powers “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/oped.PrintView.-content-articles-RTD-2007-11-27-0001.html

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in the government.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed– unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” — James Madison

“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” — Richard Henry Lee

“The great object is that every man be armed.” — Patrick Henry

“We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed;”
—Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”
—Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
—Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
—Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor…
—George Mason

The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals…[I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
—Albert Gallatin to Alexander Addison, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2.
*Gallatin’s use of the words “some rights,” doesn’t mean some of the rights in the Bill of Rights, rather there are many rights not enumerated by the Bill of Rights, those rights that are listed are being established as unalienable.

Roger Sherman, during House consideration of a militia bill (1790):

[C]onceived it to be the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made. The particular states, like private citizens, have a right to be armed, and to defend, by force of arms, their rights, when invaded.
14 Debates in the House of Representatives, ed. Linda Grand De Pauw. (Balt., Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), 92-3.

With the Supreme Court’s decision to examine the constitutionality of D.C.’s gun ban, the nation once again turns to an intense examination of the wording of the Second Amendment. One way to understand an amendment whose words have confused generations is to study its somewhat confusing text. But another way is to examine at whose request the amendment was written.

For example, if 200 years from now constitutional scholars are trying to determine whether the Smith Tax Act of 2008 increased or decreased the taxes Social Security recipients paid on their retirement income, knowing that the act came into being as the result of pressure from AARP would pretty much end that debate.

This, then, is a vital question when seeking to understand the Second Amendment. For if you know the context in which the Amendment was written, if you know for whom it was written, if you know who was clamoring for it and what were their concerns, then that can help settle any argument of individual rights versus collective rights.

The Bill of Rights was written by Congressman James Madison to fulfill a promise made to the Anti-Federalists after pressure from that group had cost him a Senate seat — pressure brought to bear because of his opposition to amending the Constitution with a bill of rights. The Bill of Rights, then, as any history book will confirm, came into being to satisfy the single most suspicious, vociferous, and relentless foes of the new federal government.

That is the all-important context in which the Bill of Rights was created. The Anti-Federalists, men filled to varying degrees with fear, mistrust, and loathing of the new federal government, insisted on a bill of rights as additional shackles imposed on that new government. Knowing that alone, knowing that the famous Bill came into existence only to please those most apprehensive of the new government, definitively ends any confusion or debate surrounding the meaning of the Second Amendment.

There is simply no way on Earth the Anti-Federalists would have surrendered to the new and mistrusted government the right to own any gun they wanted at any time they wanted in any number they wanted.

To believe differently, to believe that the Second Amendment actually gives the federal government the authority to regulate firearms, one must believe the absolutely unbelievable. One must believe that the Anti-Federalists, fearing and loathing federal power, compelled Madison to compose this laundry list of rights, this list of things over which the government was to have no authority and, very near the very top of the list, these people in fear of the federal government desired a clause that reads, “Despite the fact that Article I, Section 8 does not empower you federal government people to infringe our firearms rights, we hereby correct that mistake and surrender to you a right which we previously held, but wish now to give away.”

We must further believe that James Madison was such a monumentally incompetent and abysmal writer that, when trying to give the federal government this new authority to regulate the private ownership of firearms, the last fourteen words of the Amendment read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

We must also believe that revolutionary American history conceals some hitherto unknown and utterly undocumented groundswell of public desire for gun control.

Picture in your mind for a moment the rough-and-tumble individualist who gave birth to this nation, a man who had tamed a wilderness, fought Indian wars on and off for 180 years, and successfully faced down the world’s mightiest empire. Hold a picture of that man in your head for a moment and then try to imagine his being told that this new federal government would have the power to regulate his ownership of firearms in any manner it saw fit, including imprisoning him for possession of any firearm for any reason at any time.

No honest or serious person could ever claim to believe that any part of the American electorate in the 1700s desired federal gun control, let alone the Anti-Federalists who forced the creation of the Bill of Rights.

Rick Lynch is an author living in Virginia. He is finishing a book on constitutional issues entitled They Are Vicious. Send him email.

related: http://www.gurapossessky.com/news/parker/pleadings.html

http://dcguncase.com/blog/case-filings/

Sorry, but your back bending and twisting does not wash. You still have not explained why for generations there was no redesigning of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment until the extreme left decided they wanted to eliminate the right to self-protection affirmed in the Constitution.

Additionally, it does NOT matter if some of the Founders might have changed their minds about the Amendment should they be suddenly and miraculously transported to today. It doesn’t matter what they MIGHT have COME to believe if they knew about machine guns, modern technology, et al. See, we base our Constitution on what it meant THEN, not the fantasy of what the Founders “might” have come to think.

The meaning of the 2nd Amendment was CLEAR that it was an individual right, not a collective one. Only the disingenuous, the uninformed and the liars could possibly think otherwise.

“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 first part of the sentence modifies the latter half as a condition or circumstance. Can you see how that is all one sentence, or do your grammar skills end where your personal opinion contradicts them?
Are you in a militia?

You can pretend you’d know how the Founding Fathers would respond today for various issues, but it’s as absurd as if one were to speak for our dead relatives, making estimations on what someone would say hundreds of years ago while ignoring that our culture has had significant developments. The Founders made some truly progressive changes that have created a model for all democracies. That does not mean they were gods. So as such, it would be better if you simply discussed the issue at hand in an intellectual fashion instead of pondering something utterly unprovable as you have.

Let’s start caring about what makes sense in today’s context. If personal gun ownership is a right, then make a case for it. Otherwise, it isn’t written as such, so that fails to be a proper argument. If your best defense of gun ownership is a combination of poor reading comprehension and your Republican Ouija board, then I can only hope that your case of ‘proudly holding opinion over all else’ isn’t epidemic.

So, yes, I know EXACTLY what they meant and how they’d respond today. EVERY American did until anti-Constitutionalists like you tried to get their way and began a decided campaign to destroy the Constitution.

Thanks for revealing your hatred of the English language, the rule of law, the Constitution and America. We appreciate your help understanding where you stand.