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Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha
Unfortunately, given the current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, I think the Court will affirm the lower court's holding.
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I think it is pretty clear that is the way they are heading, and again, I am actually okay with that. At the same time, it does become a question of regulation. If private ownership of guns is protected: Can the State limit the number owned? The storage and safety measures required by owners? If so, to what extent?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha
I'm frankly astonished that is has taken over 200 years for the Court to determine whether the 2nd Amendment is a collective or individual right.
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I agree. When I first started looking into this, I expected to find a fairly straightforward answer. Part of the confusion, I think, is the societal change that has occurred in the last 200 hundred years and the changes in how governments raise and maintain armies. Stretching back to antiquity, there was a time when, as a public duty, men were required to have arms in order to provide for the common defense. Thus, the individual right was part of a public duty. As times changed, so did the neccessity for individual ownership as part of a public duty (generally, in developed countries that is simply no longer the case). At the same time, the right to privately own guns became so ingrained in society that, IMO, it became seen as neccessary to individual liberty.
I have always held that the right to "keep and bear arms" is a necessary check on attempt by the central authority to monopolize power. Balanced against this, of course, is the central authority's need to protect the general citizenry from dangerous conditions created by a prolifieration of deadly weapons.