http://www.nysun.com/article/66979
My reply.
*********************************************
November 26, 2007
Editor
New YorkSun
FAX 212-608-7348
Deliberately different.The Second Amendment is deliberately different
from the Massachusetts constitution regarding the very phrase you
focus on in your November 25th editorial “Clue for the Court?”
On September 9, 1789, the US Senate specifically rejected a proposed
amendment that would have added the words "common defense" into the
Second Amendment after "arms." This express rejection precludes any
reading that the right of the people was restricted to those acting in
"common" by serving in the militia or otherwise under government
control.
As James Madison repeatedly made clear, the Bill of Rights, if
adopted, would thwart the passage of proposals aggrandizing state
powers, not reengage the battles won by the Federalists in drafting
the original Constitution. Consistently, the Second Amendment does not
restrict the military power fully allocated to the Congress (and
removed from the states) in the militia clauses of Article I, section
8, clauses 15 and 16. The Second Amendment doesn't re-empower the
state militia, it merely preserves the infrastructure from which a
citizen militia can be drawn, the armed citizenry. The "right of the
people" to own and use weapons is preserved but there is deliberately
no mention of any new "right of the state." Like all the other
"right[s] of the people" in the Bill of Rights, it is a meaningful
individual right. Yours, mine, and ours, but not the state
government's.
Very truly yours,
Joseph Olson, J.D., LL.M.
Professor of Law
651-523-2142
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