> The gun lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the work fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies—the militia—would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.

Sounds like you have been a victim of fraud. At least according to a former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. To prevent more people falling prey to fraudsters, Justice Stevens recommends that this amendment should be repealed - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens...

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nickff 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> "Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. To prevent more people falling prey to fraudsters, Justice Stevens recommends that this amendment should be repealed"

I think you might be missing a sentence or a citation there, because Stevens was an associate justice, never the chief on SCOTUS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens

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Terr_ 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Amen, I've ranted on HN about that a few times. [0] There is zero question that the Second Amendment was created as limit on the federal government interfering with individual states, and did not bar any state from whatever policy they chose for themselves. (Also, at that time, every state was already mandated by mutual treaty to have a "well-regulated militia" with state-appointed officers and state-funding, so the term had existing meaning.)

Whether that narrow scope is/should-be still true is trickier given the 14th amendments, although I believe it was wrongly included in the incorporation doctrine. [1]

[0] I know Google-search scoped to HN used to find them, and today it doesn't. The enshittification continues, is it time for me to start slowly scraping my own comment-history?

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incorporation_doctrine

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jack_h 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> There was a want hitherto, and there remains a want now, in the Constitution of our country, which the proposed amendment will supply. What is that? It is the power in the people, the whole people of the United States, by express authority of the Constitution to do that by congressional enactment which hitherto they have not had the power to do, and have never even attempted to do; that is, to protect by national law the privileges and immunities of all the citizens of the Republic and the inborn rights of every person within its jurisdiction whenever the same shall be abridged or denied by the unconstitutional acts of any State.

> Allow me, Mr. Speaker, in passing, to say that this amendment takes from any State any right that ever pertained to it. No State ever had the right, under the forms of law or otherwise, to deny to any freeman the equal protection of the laws or to abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizen of the Republic, although many of them have assumed and exercised the power, and that without remedy.

-- John Bingham, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2542

> Such is the character of the privileges and immunities spoken of in the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution. To these privileges and immunities, whatever they may be -- for they are not and cannot be fully defined in their entire extent and precise nature -- to these should be added the personal rights guarantied and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as the freedom of speech and of the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances, a right appertaining to each and all the people; the right to keep and to bear arms; the right to be exempted from the quartering of soldiers in a house without the consent of the owner; the right to be exempt from unreasonable searches and seizures, and from any search or seizure except by virtue of a warrant issued upon a formal oath or affidavit; the right of an accused person to be informed of the nature of the accusation against him, and his right to be tried by an impartial jury of the vicinage; and also the right to be secure against excessive bail and against cruel and unusual punishments.

-- Jacob Howard, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2765

It's correct to say that the second amendment was a limit on the federal government only as decided in Barron v. Baltimore (1833). Total incorporation was the intent of the 14th even though the courts ultimately re-affirmed Barron in US v. Cruikshank (1876) which was a 14th amendment case over the 1st and 2nd amendment. De Jonge v. Oregon (1937) overturned part of Cruikshank by incorporating the right to peaceable assembly from the 1st, later that year Palko vs. Connecticut created selective incorporation doctrine and incorporated double jeopardy from the 5th, and of course McDonald v. Chicago (2010) overturned the other part of Cruikshank by incorporating the 2nd. All this to say, incorporation doctrine is pretty convoluted. If you think that the 2nd amendment should not be incorporated but the rest should then that would make things even more absurd. There's just no way via either total or selective incorporation that you can exclude the 2nd without it becoming nine judges determine what rights the government grants you, thus defeating the entire purpose of the bill of rights.

	▲	Terr_ 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> All this to say, incorporation doctrine is pretty convoluted. If you think that the 2nd amendment should not be incorporated but the rest should then that would make things even more absurd. Please indulge me in a hypothetical. Suppose a parallel-universe where 2nd amendment had almost exactly the same effect when ratified, but was phrased as: "The Federal government may not interfere with any State maintaining its militia, nor interfere with potential volunteers and their armaments." Would you consider that a rule about the fed<->people relationship (creating a personal right for all "potential volunteers"), or do you read it as a rule about the balance of power between fed<->state layers? Do you agree that the difference between those categories matters when it comes to applying the 14th, and which fed-can't-do-X rules autogenerate new state-can't-do-X rules? > [...] without it becoming nine judges determine what rights the government grants you, thus defeating the entire purpose of the bill of rights. First, that's an appeal to consequences, the truth of something shouldn't depend on whether we like what it says about the universe... and second, it's far too late to avoid that outcome because it's already been true for many years.

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bigstrat2003 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> There is zero question that the Second Amendment was created as limit on the federal government interfering with individual states, and did not bar any state from whatever policy they chose for themselves.

Amendment 10, brought into force at the same time as amendment 2, says that the states can't infringe upon the right to bear arms either. That is very far from "zero question" as you stated.

	▲	Terr_ an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Amendment 10 [...] at the same time [...] says that the states can't infringe upon the right to bear arms either. No. Just no. The most-charitable interpretation here is that you're confusing the 10th with the 14th, and that one was a century later. The 10th does the exact opposite of limiting states! It says states continue to have all powers they didn't specifically give up by joining. > The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.