Gun Control & RKBA

Heller was actually 9-0 for the individual right; Breyer said he believed "the entire Court subscribes" to the individual right interpretation.

Justice Breyer says in his Heller dissent, that the individual right is represented in the Court's precedent and all three opinions issued that day in June 2008.

Breyer's dissent, which had the other 3 dissenting Justices concur, said (emphasis added):

"The Second Amendment says that: “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.” In interpreting and applying this Amendment, I take as a starting point the following four propositions, based on our precedent and today’s opinions, to which I believe the entire Court subscribes:

(1) The Amendment protects an “individual” right—i.e., one that is separately possessed, and may be separately enforced, by each person on whom it is conferred. See, e.g., ante, at 22 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 1 (Stevens, J., dissenting). . . . "

Justice Stevens said in the opening of his Heller dissent, (which the other three dissenting Justices concur), "[t]he question presented by this case is not whether the Second Amendment protects a “collective right” or an “individual right.” Surely it protects a right that can be enforced by individuals. . . ."

Your "collective right" has been relegated to the dustbin of discarded anti-constitutional garbage.

So, the first thing you need to discard are the lies you have been told about what the Court said, and accept what the Court has actually said. Why haven't you done that in the last 13 years?

The Supreme Court has NEVER embraced any interpretation other than the 2nd Amendment recognizing and securing a pre-exsiting right, not granted, given, created or otherwise established by the 2nd Amendment thus in no manner dependent on the Constitution for its existence.

Supreme Court, 1876: "The right . . . that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose'* . . . is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. . . ."

Supreme Court, 1886: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. . . . "

Supreme Court, 2008: "it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in . . . 1876 , “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. . . .”​


* When the facts of the 1876 case are examined, the right specified, that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose' ​was the right of armed self defense, in public, exercised by two former slaves, (then citizens), against white rioters, in 1873 Louisiana, a state which had no militia, it being disbanded on orders of Congress -- see The Colfax Massacre

When the Supreme Court says that "neither is [the RKBA] in any manner dependent upon [the Constitution] for its existence", that ALSO means the RKBA can not be argued to be dependent upon a structure (the Art I, §8, cl's 15 & 16 organized militia) that is itself, ENTIRELY dependent upon the Constitution for its existence.

Arguing the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms is conditioned on, qualified by, or dependent upon a citizen's attachment to the organized militia, is a philosophical, logical, historical and legal impossibility.

The various "collective right" interpretations, (the "militia right" and "state's right" ) were creations of the lower federal courts, first inserted in the federal court system in 1942 to avoid enforcing SCOTUS in US v Miller (1939).

Yes, Heller did invalidate prior court opinion but not SCOTUS precedent; it was 66 years of lower federal court perversions of the Constitution which of course, SCOTUS had an obligation to strike down, not obey.

Those "collective right" lies died in 2008; you really should have weaned yourself off of them by now.



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