(b) I realize(d) you don’t agree the “[necessity of] a well-regulated Militia” restrictively qualifies “the right to bear arms.” Do you have a reason for this view?

(c) The Supreme Court’s view on something other than the constitutional right to bear arms (say, a right to bear arms that precedes and stands apart from the document) doesn’t speak one way or the next to my view on the constitutional right to bear arms. Your point is interesting, again, but my focus is narrower.

(d) Yes, a surface read of the Constitution shows the need to “protect the rights of citizens.” But a surface read isn’t sufficient for understanding a[ny] document. Madison’s daily notes on the constitutional draft convention, published after his death, indicate the driving objective of the framers to protect landed and mercantile wealth from the looming danger of popular sovreignty. They actually had conversations about the best way to prevent this. (See relevant chapters of Ollman and Birnbaum,”The United States Constitution: Two Hundred Years of Anti-Federalist, Abolitionist, Feminist, Muckraking, Progressive, and Especially Socialist Criticism.“) Actually, pretty much nobody thought popular sovreignty was a good idea until the 19th century.

(e) Re. your point about “States which attempt to make everyone “equal” and make the world “fair” through the redistribution of wealth…Which is why, in those societies, the individual possession of firearms is always considered an evil”:

Notwithstanding Marxist arguments that no such thing as “socialism in one country” (or even a bloc of them, together) can exist, you must have in mind countries which purport to be socialist, whatever they actually are. But then, there are counterexamples: Cuba has actually armed its neighborhoods with public caches of guns for at least 30 years in anticipation of a U.S. invasion. (See here.) Of course, these haven’t been turned against the state.

(f) The idea that “Marxism” requires “exceptional altruis[m]” is dealt with in a longer freestanding post of mine here.

I think you overreach. I was not “making (my) support for guns dependent on the Constitution”. I was simply illustrating the flaw in your “militia” argument.

In the first place, you make the basic error that “A well-regulated militia” is a restrictive clause limiting “the right of the People.” (And “well-regulated” means “properly functioning.” I think even you’d admit that the “Algiers Point Militia” functioned properly.)

You’re far from alone on that, but what the hey. So far, three Supreme Court cases (none of which have been overturned) have said that a right to “keep and carry arms wherever (citizens)” go, “bearing arms for a lawful purpose” (with no mention of membership or participation in a militia) is a right that pre-exists the Constitution and is not dependent on that document. The Second Amendment merely prohibits Congress from infringing on that right.

On your last aside, the Constitution has some flaws, granted – but the purpose of that document was not to “maintain a really fucked up distribution of wealth,” (You really ARE a Marxist, aren’t you?) it was to protect the rights of citizens. The philosophy of the founders was Lockean – life, liberty, property (famously – and well-altered to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).

It’s taken the better part of 200 years to circumvent the protections built into that document – pretty much in the name of redistribution of wealth, though very few will come right out and admit it.

States which attempt to make everyone “equal” and make the world “fair” through the redistribution of wealth make everyone equally miserable – except, of course, the people who get to do the redistributing. They’re always “more equal” than everyone else. And they decide what’s “fair.”

Which is why, in those societies, the individual possession of firearms is always considered an evil. Because if they’re armed, the victims can be dangerous.

How anyone can still support Marxism is beyond me. For Marxism to work, 95% or more of the population must be exceptionally altruistic – and the Bell curve simply doesn’t support that.

“[T]he “right to bear arms” is a conditional one–conditional on there being a need for a Militia, and this in turn being conditional on there being a Militia in place to which ordinary gun ownership can actually be said to contribute. Surely these conditions are not met in the present.”

To which Baker responded with examples of alleged militia actions. First, if this is supposed to address the first part of my claim—that there isn’t a need for a Militia—it isn’t much of an argument. I may as well argue that, since there are examples of elephants, elephants are “need[ed].” Simply citing that something exists is not to say that it is needed or mandated.

In any case, these probably aren’t militias in the constitutional sense—as they are not designated by the definite article (the constitution mandates a Militia) nor have the level of organizational integration among one another that would make use of the definite article anything more than a hope or lie. Nor are they at all “well regulated.” Nor do their actions address “state security”—along the lines of the British invasion—as the constitutional militia is (I think) designed.

The matter is not elucidated by the U.S. code, which Baker cites for a definition of “militia”:

“The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.”

That “ma[king] a declaration of intention to become…citizen…of the United States” gains you entrance to the militia should be enough to show the anachronicity of the whole project. (And the Code could misinterpret the Second Amendment just as well as gun enthusiast citizens, or it could refer to a separate concept.) Anyhow, code 10 repeats the quasi-religious idea that the militia is just everyone with a gun who wants to do good (Constitutional) things with it. Again, this is really, really un-well-regulated. Ignoring this, I’m all for defining things for the sake of the argument: If you tell me that you mean dogs—barking canines—every time you use the word “cats,” I’ll run with those terms provisionally. (It’s weird, but we can still communicate.) But you can’t just assume a similar “switch” is at work in someone else’s words, much less impose one of your own. The point is that, whatever the Code says, that just isn’t what a “militia” is. An isolated person preventing a convenience store robbery just *is not* a “militia” action. You can define it as such—define it any way you like, and argue for it on its own merit—but don’t assume the framers had such a thing in mind. It isn’t how they used the word. It just isn’t.

Again, this is not about disliking guns but my dislike of “constitutional thinking” and the type of thinking of which its a part. It reflects my commitment to “free thinking,” as much as I hate the types who celebrate this term. Its a slavish kind of thing to cite an authoritative document for support of an idea rather than the fact that the idea just makes good sense, whoever agrees with it or doesn’t. Making your support for guns dependent on the Constitution also suggests that if the Constitution had said something different, or was tomorrow changed to, gun ownership would become a bad idea. My view is that guns are probably a good thing on balance and would remain so whatever document says what. And if guns were a bad idea, that would also be the case apart from the Constitution. Facts are what they are aside from their formal ratification or what fathers of which government like them. (To boot, in many ways the Constitution is a crappy document. It does what it was designed to do—maintain a really fucked up distribution of wealth.)

Oh really?

The more important argument of the post is beside all that. You didn’t address the idea that the “right to bear arms” is a conditional one–conditional on there being a need for a Militia, and this in turn being conditional on there being a Militia in place to which ordinary gun ownership can actually be said to contribute. Surely these conditions are not met in the present.

You have created a false analogy by listing a “right” that is not recognized under the Constitution.

The Supreme Court did recognize the true meaning of the 2nd Amendment in the majority opinion of the Dred Scott verdict. They reasoned that blacks had no rights as citizens because they could not envision the framers as meaning that blacks could “carry arms anywhere” the way whites were able to. They didn’t say that “blacks can’t fill out the forms to carry arms anywhere”.

This case was never overturned. The 13th and 14th amendments spelled out that blacks DID enjoy full citizenship, thereby leaving the Dredd Scott decision in place.

It is therefore part of settled case law that a citizen can carry arms anywhere. Not fill out the forms. Carry. Arms. Anywhere.

THAT is what the settled case law from the U.S. Supreme Court says. Read it.