Santa's... er, Satan's Sinfully Wholesome Political Memes

The purpose of those militias was to among other things defend against foreign aggression right?

Yes, since as Anc and I both noted, there was serious distrust of standing armies.

Yeah we’ve been over the meaning of the second amendment several times over several threads over several years and you still pretend like we haven’t and that you still don’t understand it. This is a perfect example of you being disingenuous and arguing as you like to say, in bad faith. This the reason for posting the smiley and the reason why I don’t like to play these silly games.

Which seems to suggest that nowadays the arms they would list would be those useful against a modern military right? I'd guess similar to the types of arms the west is supplying Ukraine.

Why Bailey, are you advocating for private ownership of Saint Javelin?

So… You completely failed to even attempt to answer the question. Where do the FF even broach your arms v ordnance straw man?

True fact. I was bored and went and started reading all references to arms in Blackstone.

Not seeing anything but maybe you know the right section and can educate me:

https://lonang.com/library/reference/blackstone-commentaries-law-england/bla-113/

And maybe I missed it but where in your post did you mention ‘well regulated’?

I understand what different people assert to believe the meaning is, and what the current legal understanding is (which has changed a lot in the past century for something that is apparently so settled).

I'm well aware of what Lanz thinks it does and doesn't cover, that was the whole point of my post, however that doesn't mean it isn't just as biased as those differing interpretations he criticises.

Looking at the history of cases it seems pretty clear that:

1. The US founders put that amendment in place partially due to existing common law precedents, and partially to ensure the country would be able to defend itself against any aggressors, with enough privately owned guns being considered enough to fight off military powers at the time.

2. Over subsequent decades, no-one was really pursuing legal cases around the 2nd Amendment, or the types of weapons it covered, meaning that the precise boundaries of what it did and didn't cover weren't challenged when there was anyone involved around to clarify.

3. Legal cases invoking or challenging interpretations of the 2nd Amendment largely started appearing after a time that warfare was moving from the traditional structure of lines of people with guns pointed at each other to much more industrialized and technological capabilities. So any interpretation including those new capabilities would have felt like an expansion, rather than an upholding of the status quo. At these times legal judgements tended to rely heavily on interpreting it as a collective right leaning more on the militia supporting side.

4. Around the 1980s some started pushing cases focusing more on a self defense right, or even the motive being irrelevant. At these times the cases were largely around people keeping what they already had, and the militia aspect was downplayed.

That largely brings it to the present day. Importantly, unless I've missed discussions/examples provided over the years, I've not seen anyone put forward case on why it should only cover things in a gun type form factor, just people saying that is what it does. In the context of its history I still think that is just as arbitrary a reading as any other.

Not at all, but then again I think that pretending that a law regarding weaponry from the 1700s could foresee how things would progress over the next 250 years is reliant on personal bias to the extent that trying to infer what they would mean in a present context is foolish.

How strange.

Indeed, it's fucking wild that there are people who think they wrote a law intended to protect the rights of people to own weaponary sufficient to fight off foreign militaries that isn't actually intended to protect the rights of people to own the weapons required to fight off foreign militaries.

The FBI has had the ability to go after anyone since day one.

But probably not the desire.

I believe the point is that trumpeters want it to stop. These are the people you support - and don’t say you’re not a Republican. That isn’t the question.

You have no idea who I support, shut the fuck up.

I can only go by what you post here. And you posted your support of the shit that you now are saying you oppose.

So, maybe you should shut the fuck up and research before you post.

Prove it.