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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Congress would have to make laws to flesh out those specifics. Those details shouldn't be tied to something as universal as the Constitution, they should be more open to interpretation over time. A Constitution lays out general principles that guide the creation of specific law.
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rat, this sounds suspiciously like the 'living constitution' theory, where people can use judical activism to redefine terms when something that started out great, becomes not so great because of personal displeasure.
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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Also, I deliberately didn't use the word "right". I used the word "privilege".
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If it's a 'privilege', then there would be no need to have an amendment in the bill of rights. Since you created a new amendment, I merely assumed it was a mistype on your part. my apologies.
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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Show me some evidence of this assertion. Otherwise, it's just more "God wants me packing", which I'm telling you is against centuries of biblical and theological tradition.
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US v. Cruikshank. 'The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.'
on top of that, most of the documentation from both pre-ratification as well as post-ratification talk of the right to bear arms. I would imagine that since they believed that the right to bear arms was inherent before the 2nd amendment was ratified, therefore it pre-existed.
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Originally Posted by ratbastid
If you were a speculating man, why would you guess the Framers wrote it the way they did? What was the point of putting the "hey, come on, we gotta have a well-regulated militia, guys!" rationalization in there?
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I believe george mason said it best when he said "Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...? I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers."