+121

Until I declare stopping or changing that, from now on, I intend to, at least once every week, do a Google news search writing "Second Amendment Justice judge's last name" on everyone of the nine judges at the final court, looking for new material from them telling us what is holding them here. 

+120 (second amendment interpretation 86)

As if it is not enough that no argument was given for why should the meaning of "being" be extended beyond its direct status reference. Look at how in the section and article mentioned in the preceding post "being" was there from beginning to end of developing the Amendment. If it was just a form of expression why no attempt was made to change it? With all the effort put to express things, as shown in the changes in expressions mentioned in the preceding post, among other things, and with attention at the level of adding a comma or changing a semicolon to a comma, why no body said: Hey guys, somebody could confuse this "being" to mean that we are referring to only our status?
What also deserves a special mentioning in this regard is why would they worry about the government using the "religiously scrupulous" part but do not worry about "being" gets used by future governments to tell people this is not about your time if "being" was intended to mean "always"?   

+119 (second amendment interpretation 85)

Take a look at the section titled "Conflict and compromise in Congress.." in THIS article about the Second Amendment. It provides a valuable drafting history for the Amendment. When I first looked at the earlier versions of the Amendment I worried about how saying "being the best security" would weaken my argument that "the right of the people" refers to the right created by the reason given at the preceding part of the Amendment. But then I recognized how much, instead, the direction of the development of the Amendment supports my side. "being the best security" was changed to "being the security" which in turn was changed to "being necessary to the security", more and more to the direction that justifies that as a reason for a right to keep and bear arms.  

+118 (second amendment interpretation 84)

Continuing from post +116 

And don't forget that all that clarification did not come within in a Because a militia is.. form. Instead it came within the being form which, because it points at the object at the current time only, provides no continuity directly from the authority of the constitution. The continuity here is dependent on our judgment that the object is still in that status and therefore requires understanding the connections in that part in order to apply it.   

+117

Even if I had recognized how much the situation here is like those in stories of human sacrifice societies and had seen the Amendment and wanted to argue for its interpretation at the time of the Heller case in 2008, there is no way I could have imagined that the court would come up with the theory suggested in its opinion in order to take into account answering it.  

It may not be the only way, but this is one of the problems the method of preliminary view for court opinions I mentioned elsewhere could solve . I generally view this method for the benefit of judges. The fact that a judge is the final decider does not need to come at the cost of being in a position with a potential of significant lacking of information. Why should it be that a litigant gets all the input of the judge but not vice versa? That question becomes even more important considering how often the judge is the layman in the field of the litigant.        

+116 (second amendment interpretation 83)

I just noticed that in trying to answer the theory in the opinion of the court I dealt with the Amendment as if it did not say "to the security". So even just directly from this, how would the theory of the court stand? If the purpose of the Amendment does not include empowerment and it was not dependent on the existence of sufficient power, how would preserving the militia leads to security? Should one assume a magical connection to that in that "clarifying" part of the Amendment? The Amendment could have said "..necessary to a free state, the right.." or even just "..necessary, the right.." and that part could lead to ambiguation more than clarification if the purpose of the Amendment was as it could be according to the theory of the court. So how about missing as direct connection as that?  

+115

Continuing from the preceding post:

I would very much prefer to give higher credit to myself for differing here instead of saying that others are acting abnormally but unfortunately there is no way I can convince myself of that. The Second Amendment is a well defined expression and shouldn't have subjected to what it was subjected here. It is to me so much so that I honestly feel much less confidence in myself that even with exhausting effort I can prevent other than what I meant taking to something I may say. This is coming from a person who once tried to correct others for suggesting a problem with applying the Second Amendment here before seeing the Amendment which he had to drag himself to do despite how easy the task is because of how much he was not expecting it would worth the effort.
   

+114

I want to point out again that despite my discussion about interpreting the Second Amendment here, I am light years away from missing how the behavior of the court regarding this matter screams loudly psychological issue.

One could have seen that easily even through strong rationalization. So how about when the court does not show any ground for its position or reason for its difficulty here?

+113

An alternative theory to some of what is in the preceding post would be that the court simply wants to keep as much as possible only the level needed for the person in applying the Second Amendment until it finishes reviewing its position on interpreting it. In order to do that it has taken one general view across all kind of Arms for a risk (to others) to benefit evaluation. Therefore it may choose to grant a stun gun or knife case but may deny a case with similar arguments for guns.

+112

Although I haven't read the opinion of this court in reversing the Massachusetts stun gun restriction, I think that the writer HERE did not get it right. The effect of the Second Amendment on this court sounds like that scene from Star Wars where somebody kicks and gasps for air because of being lifted from his neck although you cant see how the other guy is doing that to him. However, its granting or not granting related cases may have much less to do with seeing or not seeing the actions of the other courts as a "slap in the face". While this court is taking time reviewing itself on the Second Amendment it may pause from applying its established rulings leaving the stage for lower courts to step in to fill the gap and do what they think their duty calls on them to do. But this pause by this court probably comes from the morality issue of the probability of its being wrong there and not just the probability of being wrong in itself. So when it sees that the continuity of its ruling is what is more on the moral side then it may use the path of continuity in applying its already established precedent until it gets changed. The same probability of being wrong that may have caused the court not to grant other Second Amendment cases until it decides on a position, could also be the reason to grant this case to reverse what was seen as an imbalanced position toward stun guns until that decision.  

By the way, how often does it happen that minority dissenting judges would continue those same dissents later on applying the ruling they had dissented its making for this writer to be wondering about its absence here? 

+111 (second amendment interpretation 81)

Even though it was not the main thing for understanding the Amendment, not understanding why "the right of the people" was used made me wonder about how that could fit as an expression for the right being recognized. The other side on the other hand apparently found it easier to jump the assumption of self sufficiency to go and look for other reasons for the existence of that right instead of ways of expressions justifying that use. More astonishingly, they did that despite how the combination with the preceding part would lead to a meaningless statement. For me, the guidance of the preceding part of the Amendment  made me far away from even thinking that others could have depended on the use of "right of the people" as the foundation for their interpretation of the Amendment. It was relatively very recently that I recognized  this as the position of the court after being confused for so long with describing "self-defense" in the opinion off the court as "central component of the right itself", by combining that foundation with the attempt implied in this description to make meaning of that foundation combined with preceding part of the Amendment.  

Anyway, even if we take finding no answer for the use of  "the right of the people" as justifying the creation of such a strange meaning, now that we see a very valid use for that expression by paying attention to the difference of when the right was recognized from when it existed, that difficulty in creating a meaning with the other view points us to the understanding just mentioned as the answer. As an analogy, assume a person being told to use the exit to go out while he is in a room where he cant see but walls and therefore interpreted  that some of the walls might be an exit. But then after he suddenly recognized the existence of a door, would he still continue  to have the exit through the walls as a probable interpretation?   

110

The word "fabrication", in the preceding post, might have been the wrong way to express the abnormality of the opinion of the court. In any case, its use there has nothing to do with intention and merely intended to express more rootless creation in contrast with over extending something.   

109

Although I have no desire to do it for a personal reason, I am thinking of calling myself the Second Amendment guy. Why? In order to counter this wide spread tendency for the Second Amendment to be taken for granted to give a right to have firearms. People very easily and without any hesitation or thinking use "I am pro Second Amendment" in order to convey that they are pro a right for firearms.      

Even though it is a minor thing relative to the continued effect of taking lives, the injustice inflicted on the makers of the Amendment with all the accusations and the reckless way what they said has been taken, could be enough by itself to make one to try to counter that.To begin with, if it is not already there, I do not know how much closer one can get to fabrication from interpretation than the Supreme Court here.         

+108

How long has the Second Amendment been due for correction in applying it? Eighty? Ninety? More than hundred years? Still there is a huge difference between more than hundred years and more than hundred years and one day when it comes to returning the right of the people to decide for themselves a matter that could make that much difference between life and death.  

+107 (second amendment interpretation 80)

Even without seeing where the word "right" came from, if this was the excuse for not applying the Amendment correctly, it is a common thing to see such use just as a redundancy for that word without intending it to change anything. You say that maybe true in everyday talk but a constitution shouldn't be taken as if it was made in a shallow or careless way like that? Why then wasn't this same view applied on the word "being"? Taking the word "being" like how a word in a constitution should be taken eliminates, through its precedence in the Amendment, any dependency on understanding why the word "right" was chosen in the following clause, when it comes to the issue of continuity in applying the Arms clause on subsequent time. 

Or was it that "the right of the people" was taken as the starting position and the rest of the Amendment was brought to fit an absolute understanding of that phrase and a comma before "being" was seen sufficient to push it away from its meaning at the root but the entire part before that phrase was not able to suggest the dependency of that "right"? That of course is in addition to having a ratified version without comma before "being".

+106 (second amendment interpretation 79)

Also related to post 104, I think that I need to be more accurate in expressing both my answer and what I am answering. I am arguing against seeing "of the people" being formulated that way in order to directly express the quality of being natural right. The theory I am suggesting is that, other than stating to whom the right belongs, the purpose of "of the people" is not to directly point out any quality of an identity. Instead, the direct purpose is limited to pointing out existence of that identity. More specifically, the purpose is to point out existence not created by the Amendment for that right using only the level of identification needed for that purpose. This separation between whether something is or is not to be created by the corresponding Amendment ought to be encountered first in the process of creating the Amendment. Also, whether an integral part or an addition to the purpose of using "of the people" to state that the existence the right has is not being created by the corresponding Amendment, there is a passive reference to the right and in turn whatever qualities it has and that can hardly show leaving a need for a direct reference.

+105 (second amendment interpretation 78)

I mixed things in the preceding post. If the intention behind "the right of the people" to which I am referring, was concluded from parts of the bill of rights other than the Second Amendment, then the additional point at the end of that post is valid. But if the Second Amendment itself was needed then that point is just a redundancy.

+104 (second amendment interpretation 77)

The way the phrase "the right of the people" was used in the Fourth Amendment may not seem encouraging to what was mentioned here about it in the Second Amendment. But on a more careful look this could not only be neutralized but also flipped the other way around. The initial uneasy feeling about the use of that phrase in comparison to how it was used in the Fourth Amendment comes from how, in contrast with seeing it referring to a controlled or conditioned right here, it seemed to refer to a natural right there. However, seeing "the right of the people" imply a natural right in the Fourth Amendment follows seeing it referring to an already existing right. But as direct as being the other side of that same already existing right coin is that the creation of the Amendment did not create that right. Sharing the meaning of that phrase from the level of that the right was not being created by the Amendment instead of jumping directly to the conclusion of a natural right seems to relieve this apparent conflict or unfit in the use of that phrase between the Second and the Fourth Amendments. In addition, now it is easier to see how much that phrase was clearly put to suggest an unconditioned natural right in the Fourth Amendment strengthening even more seeing otherwise in the Second because of how it was preceded.

+103 (second amendment interpretation 76)

This may already be clear to native speakers, but a little while ago I wondered if "of the people" was about a newly created right it would have better expressed as "for the people" instead.   

+102 (second amendment interpretation 75)

Although, I started just seeking to improve the neutrality of "the right of the people", now I try to add it as additional support to my understanding of the preceding part of the Amendment. Related to post +100, because, unlike when the reason for the "right" in the Arms clause is the continued necessity of the militia, there is no reason to see that right existing before its recognition in the Amendment, when "being" is just about  the militia itself without continued necessity. That would imply the "right" in the Arms clause was created with the recognition of it in the preceding part. In addition to the absence of support for the creation of that right and having the use of "the" with the word "right" suggesting referring to an already existing right, the "of the people" adds support to the word "right" in countering taking "being" that way by suggesting more that right is already existing and not just created.

Not only the purpose for "of the people" mentioned above can coexist with that described in post +99, they both could have originated from the same intention and seeing them as separate here is just another consequence of standing too close? In other words, both intentions for the use of "of the people" to describe "the right" (as already existing, for one, and, belongs to the people, for the other) could have been included in the intention to identify the right and that was done by pointing to its origin using "of the people".

+101 (second amendment interpretation 74)

Although my intention in writing the preceding post, and the earlier talk about "continuity connection", was to show using "right" like a filter that would not let things pass if the preceding part was applied on "being" not requiring continued existing in the status, that intention should not prevent an understanding limited to "right" directing how "being" should be taken from the construction stage of taking the Amendment.  
By the way, "the continuous having" in the preceding post should be replaced with "the continued having".

+100 (second amendment interpretation 73)

Despite that I myself responded otherwise in the hypothetical discussion of post +97, it is actually not an uncommon use of "being" to refer to the reaching of a status without necessarily the continued existence in it. But the word "right" here can clarify the intention to be about the continued necessity.  

Also, the more reasonable way to understand the part before "the right", as being about reaching the status of necessity of the militia and not necessarily the continuous having of that necessity, seems to come from understanding that part as being about the militia itself not the situation in general. This could fit with the use, talked about earlier, of the comma after "A well regulated militia", in order not to make "being necessary to the security of a free State" about the militia itself, in showing one specific reason why.

+99 (second amendment interpretation 72)

Although the preceding part in the Amendment can fit "of the people" as expressing the quality of being already existing for the right, it is important not to miss taking into account using that phrase to identify to whom the right belong given that the militia was the focus of the preceding part.    

+98 (second amendment interpretation 71)

In the preceding post it seems better to express the existence in the Amendment of that right, mentioned using the word "right", as being attached to the status of the necessity of the militia. Because we are not sure that right can survive the severance of that attachment, that right did not establish an existence that needs to be proved discontinued when the status of the necessity of the militia is no longer here.  
Also, it probably would have been better or safer to precede that point with the one about how the status of the necessity of the militia could have been itself what caused that right to exist, instead of making it follow.

+97 (second amendment interpretation 70)

Notice that in addition to this big difference in having explanations and seeing how parts of the whole picture fit and complete each other, in comparison with the other side, after proving that in our time the part saying that a well regulated militia was necessary to the security of a free state is no longer true, the burden of proof is on the other side. One may start by saying to the other side:

You cannot ignore "being". 

The other side could respond saying:

Even though I cannot satisfy the burden of proving that "being" was intended beyond its direct status meaning, still the burden of proof that the Arms clause was not intended to always apply, falls on you. Who knows? Maybe they meant to say that because a well regulated militia was necessary at that time, the right to keep and bear Arms should continue forever.

To that one may respond saying:

Aside from the lack of a reasonable connection between the two parts, for that you still should carry the burden of proving that there is still that right to keep and bear arms the Amendment mentioned at the beginning of the Arms clause. That is because the Arms clause of the Amendment said that the right to keep and bear Arms should not be infringed. It did not say that the keeping and bearing of Arms should not be infringed. You cannot say that I should carry the burden of proving that right to keep and bear Arms no longer exist. That is because the existence in the Amendment of that right to keep and bear Arms was in combination with the existence of the status of a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. In other words, that right existed in the Amendment with that status as one whole. Since that right to keep and bear Arms also might have been itself created by the status of a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state and is dependent on the continuity of that status for its existence, the existence of that right by itself was not established, to begin with, for you to say that I still should prove the discontinuity of that existence when a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state is no longer true.         

+96 (second amendment interpretation 69)

Continuing from the preceding post

Or one could say because they started speaking about the conditional status, using "being", and not about an always true fact, they kept on that focus and used the word "right" to provide conditional connection. No matter how one expresses that, the use of the word "right" fits very strongly with the conditionality of "being". 

+95 (second amendment interpretation 68)

Why did they choose to express the keeping and bearing of Arms part using the word "right"? Why not, among other possible expressions, for example, say "the keeping and bearing of Arms.."? Although emphasizing the keeping and bearing of Arms as a right may look like a sufficient answer, there seems to be a more compelling answer. The word "right" here provides a continuity connection between the "the right of the people.." part and the preceding part ("A well regulated militia, being necessary.."). Had they said something that goes directly to the intended actions (keeping and bearing of Arms), like the example I mentioned above, the door would have not been as shut to an interpretation suggesting that the "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" part intended to apply forever even if the preceding part, with the word "being", has stopped. But when they put the word "right" to link the part before it with the part after it then the continuity of allowing the capability to keep and bear Arms will depend on the keeping and bearing of Arms being a right which in turn depends on the continuity of a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State.           

+94

Although I mentioned just that case in post +92, I just found that even in the District of Columbia v. Heller case residents were allowed to keep shotguns if they are bound by trigger locks. Is applying a trigger lock really a problem? Why shotguns are treated like a version of NERF here? This is supposed to be a tough firearm law? A tough firearms law would punish for holding a picture of a shotgun.    

+93 (second amendment interpretation 67)

Although it was far from leading me to ignore the clear-cut meaning of the preceding part, that "the right of the people" kept pinching me for its possible effect on other people. Now that I paid attention to how recognizing that "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," leads to a right to keep and bear Arms, also imply the existence of that right before the point of that recognition whenever "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," was the status, there is no trouble in seeing "the right of the people" as originating from the same root and the Amendment appears in better harmony.

But it is not just about interpreting the Amendment as a whole. I started to care more about what using the expression "the right of the people" imply, because of the 14th Amendment incorporating issue. Now there is no reason to see that expression originating from seeing a right to keep and bear Arms for reasons other than "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,".           

+92

I just want to know what is going on with this stun gun prohibition in some states. Are those people serious? You have real gun ownership and selling allowed and you go after stun guns? Actually even if we assume firearms are not allowed in your state, one may still wonder about the wisdom of forbidding a nonlethal device like this.    

People here may be accustomed to it but it may not occur to people in other places hearing a discussion about a case like McDonald v. City of Chicago that the lawsuit was filed for the ownership of handgun despite that there was no prohibition on shotguns there. So with gun culture like this you go after stun guns?