Inthemiddle
Rookie
- Oct 4, 2011
- 6,354
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- Banned
- #161
Everyone responding to my thoughts here seems to be making the same mistake. You are missing the way in which the Court has restricted (or more exactly, allowed state governments to restrict -- the Court didn't restrict it on its own authority) the right to keep and bear arms. It's arguable as you have done here that the right to keep and bear arms is not predicated on service in the militia, but it can't be argued that the 2A, as written and reasonably interpreted, does not guarantee the right to keep and bear arms appropriate to militia service -- whatever else it may or may not protect.
I think you are confusing the concept of militia service, and service in a professional standing military. The weaponry, training, and expertise of a professionally maintained army will always exceed those of a "minute-man" militia, if you will. But as demonstrated in the Revolutionary War, the power of the militia is in the fact that when the majority of able bodied citizens rise up, reasonably armed, they will usually be able to repel an invading force of a smaller professional invasion army. Heller did not restrict which arms the constitution protects. That question had long been established by preceding case law, and the Heller case merely noted that history.