Ninth Stage

I’ve been reading about lines in the sand in various blogs. These line-in-the-sanders think that their lines are some kind of clear delineation between freedom and serfdom, they’re not.
Here’s how it’s going to happen (and I suggest that it’s been going this way for decades): You stick your big toe in the sand [...]

So, those who think the Supreme Court got it 180 degrees wrong, I guess the following would finally guarantee the people a right to arms:
A well regulated people, being necessary to the security of a Police State, the right of the government to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Right?  If not, you were [...]

It’s worse than I’d hoped (pdf) but better than I’d feared.
Meanwhile, Radly Balko pees in the party pool.
UPDATE: Then Radly Balko faults the NRA for not pushing Heller from the start while saying, at the link above, “I’m having a hard time getting too excited about today’s decision.”

I know it’s not scientific but I’ll take my pleasure where I find it. And I know it doesn’t “give”, it protects.
USA Today poll: Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?

We’re winning 32 to 1.

Very interesting analysis from Eugene Volokh of the meaning of “free State” in the Second Amendment.  I don’t think I’ve read anything on it before.
“State” simply meant country; and “free” almost always meant free from despotism, rather than from some other country, and never from some larger entity in a federal structure. That is how [...]

Another liberal changes his her position on gun-control.
To be quite honest, the majority of the response I got to my first blog on gun control was negative and angry, and it got me down quite a bit. But, the majority of the arguments I saw were also better, more thought out, and much more educated [...]

As for the canard that the 2nd Amendment is easy to understand, read all the historians on the subject, not just the ones who agree with you. There is no concensus. Parse the sentence, and it makes no sense grammatically–or rather it can be read two ways.
(From comment #66 here.)
I doubt it. Unless you [...]

One:
If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.
Two:
Try [...]

This is not your father’s Second Amendment organization but maybe it’s your mother’s.  It’s called “Second Amendment Moms of America“, here’s to a million of ‘em.
Via Buckeye Firearms.

Jim Zumbo’s blog at Outdoor Life has been suspended - for good if they have any sense. Remington has dumped his fat ass so it’s disgusting to see their ads still appearing above Zumbo’s mug but that’s likely to to be fixed soon.
In the interest of posterity, and thanks to Google, I’m reproducing the [...]

You’ve probably read about Zumbo the elitist anti-gun scumbag elsewhere (Tam Uncle Kevin), if not here’s the story.
Previously unknown to me hunting writer Jim Zumbo writes a post at his Outdoor Life blog that basically says “my boomstick is better than yours, to hell with them ARs, anyone who shoots one should be charged”. [...]

Article here.
At the bottom of that page is an educational addendum:
Legal Lingo
Second Amendment
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Source: U.S. Constitution
Yup, the Second Amendment is just a bit of “Legal Lingo”, pesky too I hear.

Public Education in Massachusetts is working as planned. Evidence is available in this essay by 8th graders, winning 1st place in the annual Constitution and Bill of Rights Essay Contest sponsored by the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office and The Standard-Times.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the [...]

In a sharp move, the U.S. knife industry organization, U.S. Knife & Tool Association, has changed it’s name to Knife Rights. Perhaps taking a cue from the knife nannies across the pond, they’re going to push a rights based campaign preempting home-grown nannyism.
Via Gun Law News and The War on Guns.

Discovered, the “tended armory” clause long missing from the 2nd Amendment.  More here.

A U.S. based Islamic think tank has decided that the time has come to retire the 2nd Amendment. Their reasoning is laid out in a paper titled “In the Fight Against Terrorism, Some Rights Must Be Repealed.”
The newly appointed CIA Director Porter Goss, believes that terrorists may bring urban warfare techniques learned in Iraq [...]

In a case that could shape firearms laws nationwide, attorneys for the District of Columbia argued Thursday that the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms applies only to militias, not individuals.
At The Washington Post.
At issue in the case before a federal appeals court is whether the 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” applies [...]

David Hardy at Of Arms and the Law posted a trailer on YouTube for a new documentary, In Search of the Second Amendment. Cool.