Constitutional Conundrum?

So what? The cases you cite are not Supreme Court decisions.

You may dance to your heart's content . . . You fail to make your case, despite your sneers and sarcasm about the meanings of words or terms.

Heath most assuredly thinks that there is a fundamental incompatibility between the militia clause and the second amendment. As he states:

Whatever right one believes is protected by the Second Amendment[1], surely it cannot be made contingent on military activity[2] that the states are ultimately powerless to authorize[3].

In other words, Heath contends that the second amendment is meaningless if the militia clause allows congress to preempt the entire field of military affairs.

I've been over and over it in the context of the article and honestly, even putting on my pro gun-control hat and boots, I don't see what you are reading into it

. . . I've footnoted it, you have a go at my reasoning / reading of it . . .

The 2nd Amendment is only forced into meaninglessness if you restrict the right it recognizes and secures to only state militia members or other state sanctioned organized forces. They, by their very nature, can only act under an established framework of laws and regulations and thus fall under COTUS § 8 militia clauses over which the 2nd Amendment is undoubtedly superior (by your own "later enacted" argument).

The federal government is inhibited to act (under any interpretation I have ever heard) by the 2nd Amendment; the states are forbidden to act under the federal preemption doctrine. The only way the 2nd "works" and is actionable (with an "infringee" seeking legal redress against an "infringer") is if it protects the individual and his private arms, acting as a free and independent citizen, with liberty and justice for all.

The state's right concept is like a snake eating its tail; whatever power to impact the citizen's right to arms it has been claimed to possess is consumed by the total power grab by the feds.

Where did I say the declaratory clause is meaningless? I was only arguing the definition of the term "well regulated." You assigned an incorrect definition when you said, "The point about "a well regulated militia" is that the militia can be regulated." That statement, while correct in it's conclusion, can not be arrived at by assigning that definition to "well regulated."

Focusing on the meanings of words or terms is paramount to deciding this issue. I can understand your lack of respect for such endeavors, given your stance on this subject.

The Government seeks to sustain the statute on an alternative ground. It urges that Congress, in view of the interstate commerce in firearms, might, in order to regulate it, have prohibited the possession of all firearms by persons heretofore convicted of crimes of violence; that, as the power of Congress extends so far, the presumption that acquisition was in interstate commerce is the lesser exertion of legislative power and may be upheld. Two considerations render the argument inadmissible. First, it will not serve to sustain the presumption of acquisition after the effective date of the Act, and secondly, it is plain that Congress, for whatever reason, did not seek to pronounce general prohibition of possession by certain residents of the various states of firearms in order to protect interstate commerce, but dealt only with their future acquisition in interstate commerce.

What are you talking about? I quoted Heath's own words! If you can't figure out what Heath is talking about, then maybe you should go back and read it again.

You've wasted your time. I interpreted Heath's point correctly: your footnotes add little, if anything, to that interpretation.

Look, I understand Heath's words just fine -- I don't need your silly footnotes. It's not that I have a problem with Heath's words, I have a problem with Heath's argument.

No, the second amendment is rendered meaningless when gun nuts read out the part about the "well-regulated militia."

Yeah, that's Heath's argument. I understand it. I just don't agree with it. And your endless repetition of Heath's argument isn't going to make me agree with it.

You don't do a very good job of responding to the points that I raise in my posts,

but do me just this one favor -- answer this question: Can the federal government eliminate all state militias?

Help yourself to that idiotic argument.

Your "narrow focus", by limiting itself to Tot, does not at all address the issue of whether or not firearms may be regulated, nor by whom, nor to what extent.

joefromchicago wrote:

No, the second amendment is rendered meaningless when gun nuts read out the part about the "well-regulated militia."

Joe, remember what we have learned . . . whatever type of right the 2nd Amendment secures, one's exercise of that right cannot be made dependent on any state framework of military discipline that the states are not allowed to enact or enforce.

My arguments must be working, as evidenced by the insults and anger in your replies.

During Reconstruction state militia forces were enforcing the Black Codes with brutal efficiency and Congress moved to disband the entire militia system of some southern states -- and they did.

Interestingly, it was first proposed to not only disband those state's militias but also disarm them . . . that intent was quickly defeated because of the 2nd Amendment. Not because the 2nd was appealed to as protecting the "state's right" to form militia but because the 2nd protected the individual citizen's right to arms. Disarming the militia disarmed the citizen and that was a violation of the 2nd; the 2nd was nether claimed or considered to bar disbanding a state's militia . . . See, The Congressional Globe, Feb. 26, 1867, pgs 1848-49

Even more interesting is the fact that of those horrid rights abuses, those considered the worst were committed while the state militia was disarming free Blacks. The reports from the Freedman's Bureau of the destruction of houses and killings by militia searching for arms is what made Congress act to disband those militias. So it seems the right of freed slaves to arm themselves was considered more important than a state's power to form militia and direct its actions to enforce state law . . .

Very interesting.