I am pleased with the SCOTUS decision on the right to bear arms, and while I have not read the whole decision I am certain that I will not find what I am actually looking for; something that supports my personal interpretation.  I wrote this a while back, but now is as good a time as any to post it.

Let me preface with this.

(IMO) The Bill of Rights does not in any way exist as a grant of government power.  It is, in fact, an enumeration of rights which are to be protected from the government. Granting that same government reflexive power within the text of the actual amendments over other aspects of them seems a bit contrary to their intended purpose.

While we could debate the finer points (and likely will) I’d rather get to mine on Am 2, and leave all that for later.

The good stuff is on the jump

Am 2

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.

Those who insist on a textual “limitation” believe the militia clause is meant to act upon “the right of the people to bear arms,” thereby restricting ownership to those selected specifically for that purpose.  This is of course absurd  because to do so the militia clause would have to exist as an actual expression of government political power upon the “rights of the people”in clause two, in a document whose sole function is to prevent exactly that. 

The liberal (or Anti-gun) fall back argument is that this first position would then permit any law abiding American ownership of any manner of weapon they saw fit to possess, and how that might pose a risk to domestic tranquility.  But the second amendment (nor any other in the Bill of Rights) was ever meant to define protections from criminal acts by the citizenry.  These amendments exists to protect us from actual laws or policies enacted by the Federal government (and now the states) that might deny us these fundamental rights. 

So how it is that we have even had to have this argument is beyond me.  I can take some small solace in today’s opinion, and the rights it now affords the citizens of Washington D.C.  I can only hope that similar demonstrations of clarity–which have otherwise been absent in other recently reached decisions–will be more the rule than the exception.