September 7, 2022 by Ryan Keith on FB ~
“Greg F******* (FB name kept confidential) are you familiar with the Supreme Court decision in Presser v. Illinois (1886)? The court ruled the Second Amendment right “was a right of individuals, not militias, and was not a right to form or belong to a militia, but related to an individual right to bear arms.” That was just one of no less than 4 different occasions when the Supreme Court made it clear that participation in any militia has never been a condition of exercising your 2nd Amendment right.
Note that the Bill of Rights says “the right of The People to keep and bear arms…” Everywhere else in The Constitution where a right is attributable to “The People” it refers to an individual right belonging to all Americans. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to assume “The People” means the same thing in the 2nd Amendment as it does everywhere else in The Constitution? The Supreme Court seems to think so, or at least it has for the last 232 years. If you want to do more research though, I get that.
It’s helpful to understand that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t actually grant us or guarantee us any rights. If you read it carefully, you’ll notice it simply instructs the government not to infringe upon a right that we are all already presumed to have by default. The existence of that right was never even in question to the Founding Fathers (it’s what they call “natural rights”) They merely wanted to remind the government not to infringe upon it and they gave the militia as one reason why. That’s all it does.
I would also recommend reading on Caetano v. Massachusetts (2016). That one will help clarify things if you’re one of those who thinks that 2nd Amendment might apply only to muskets. Lucky for us the 1st Amendment doesn’t apply only to parchment and quill pens or we might not be able to have this exchange right now.
My theory is that most of this quibbling about the meaning comes from the fact that the meaning of the 2nd Amendment is what Al Gore would call “an inconvenient truth”. We all know what it means. It’s just that some of us don’t like it because it technically makes virtually any form of gun control unconstitutional.
The trouble is that to repeal it would require 2/3 of Congress to pass a new amendment and then 75% of the state governors to ratify it. The gun control movement knows that’s literally impossible to achieve right now and probably will be for at least another 100 years or so.
So the only thing left to do is try and press the limits of Constitutionality to see what they can get away with or try to play semantic games about the meaning of the amendment or the intent of the Founding Fathers, which hasn’t been a very effective tactic.”
Editor’s note: Well said, Patriot Ryan Keith. 🇺🇸
*Minimal editing by Pat Riot, Publisher at AmericanNation.net