Via Robb, Kevin Baker was introduced to the logic of one Marc Rubin. Kevin has extended an invitation to Mr. Rubin for a discussion on the individual right to own firearms over at TSM. We await Rubin’s answer.
You see, Mr. Rubin believes that the grammar used by the writers of the Bill of Rights is absolute proof that there is no individual right to own firearms.
An excerpt:
For those who don’t know there are two types of rights enumerated in the Constitution, states rights and individual rights. As any Constitutional scholar will tell you, when the Framers were referring to a state’s right they used the term “the people:”. When they were referring to an individual right, they used the word ” person”.The 5th amendment is a good example. It begins with the words, “No person shall…” and lays out guarantees, among them, double jeopardy and that no person in a criminal case shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.
Once you understand who the Framers are referring to when they say “the people”, which is a collective for the individual states, and not referring to an individual right,  it’s time to deal with the most misused and misunderstood part of the 2nd amendment - the words “to keep and bear arms”.
I really dislike having to break this to Mr. Rubin, but using his logic, the 4th Amendment, including the landmark Roe vs. Wade, has just been declared null and void.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Get it? The state governments and the peoples representatives and their functionaries have the right to not be searched by the federal government in their executive, legislative, and judicial buildings, including, but not limited to their administrative buildings and modes of transport.
Not you and I. Otherwise, using Rubin’s logic, the Framers would have used the phrase “The right of every person”.
Now, if you want a truly headspinning experience, try to sort out the 10th Amendment using Rubin’s reasoning.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Those silly Framers! They repeated themselves. Why would they do that?
If Kevin does get a nibble out of Mr. Rubin I do seriously hope that he asks him how he reconciles this conundrum.
If he doesn’t receive a response, then Mr. Rubin is simply a coward of the first order.
When the Framers meant the states or States, they said states or States.
Most likely he will also have problems parsing the “A well regulated Militia” part, thinking it must have something to do with laws and rules. Those old smooth bore muskets had to be fired in volleys by rank to be effective. When you regulate a clock, it has to do with timing and pacing. There was a reason that you had a piper or drummer as part of a musket team. You practiced and practiced until that measure of music was burned into you brain as to where in the reloading process you should be regardless of what was going on around you.