Dave Hardy dug up an unpublished decision from the 6th circuit that you all need to read to believe.
The court essentially rules that since the State Guard can be armed by the State when activated, and the governor *probably* would do that, ownership of the guns was not reasonably related to its purposes. Nevermind the question of training before being activated, or that the governor might find it convenient for the units to have their own equipment.
So if this is the case, then the court is basically saying the Second Amendment has no meaning whatsoever. This isn’t collective rights, this is no rights.
So much for my argument that a collective rights ruling might serve to protect arms in line with enrolled militia service. If this ruling becomes the dominant viewpoint with a loss at SCOTUS, it will be the DC gun ban country-wide. Or like free speech in a totalitarian regime. The words on the paper say you do but they do not exist in reality because of government force.
In reading the decision, I see that the defendant helped get himself into this position and tried the 2A argument to get out of it. His idea was sound but the agreements he was bound by (State Militia codes) made them moot.
Of concern to me in general is the idea that judges can make their own personal biases into law provided they have something they can cite remotely in the realm of applicability and can make it sound good in legalese. If anything, applying the 4 part test for a 2A case as described here would be impossible to meet under practical circumstances. Especially given that the State Militia rules in question had made sure that one of the 4 requirements could never be met by denying personal arms.
What is the point of being a member of the unorganized militia with your own arms if, upon organization, you are ordered to leave them at home? And then when you argue your possession of them in valid in a militia context, you are shot down because of their own rules?
I’m starting to think a collective rights ruling in Heller is going to doom us all.
That is why we are guaranteed our right to arms. If we decide we just have to live with it, then we shouldn’t be upset because we had not the courage to do our duty.
No robe wearing sonofabitch is going to deny me my American citizenship regardless of how clever he thinks his machinations are.