Can you be a Progressive Democrat and still the support the Second Amendment?

[tortoise1956]

120. You have always been a good debater, even if I don't agree with your premise...

Here is a link to a story that cuts to the heart of the 2A debate. It discusses it in the context of the original right it was derived from, that of English Common Law:

http://www.constitution.org/mil/maltrad.htm

According to this source, British scholars have held that the original common law right was an individual one, but that it wasn't as expansive as the one envisioned by those who wrote the constitution. That is understandable - aftger all, they had jsut been through a revolution based, in part, on the attempts to disarm the colonists to make them more amenable to the whims of the crown. (Think 1774 decree banning importation of arms and powder to the colonies...)

It appears that, in order to believe in the Collective Rights version of the 2A, one must
1. hold that the term "the people", when used in the 2A (and ONLY when used in the 2A), doesn't refer to an individual right
and
2. assert that the founders (most of whom were Englishmen with a firm belief in the rights of Englishmen) somehow sought to take an individual right and limit it to militia members only.

Add to that the fact that both sides in Heller agreed there was an individual right. The difference was that the dissenter held that the individual; right only applied to members of the militia. (How it can still be an individual right is hard to understand, but hey - that's another, of a long list, of reasons why I haven't been appointed to SCOTUS!)

Finally, the whole "Collective Rights" theory is strictly a 20th century invention. There are no cases in American law (that weren't overturned on appeal) that refer to a collective right until the 1930's. I'll be glad to examine any cases you can find, but I seriously doubt you'll have much luck finding anything before 1930.

Feel free to scoff at me. Just be gentle...