Only Thomas dissents!

Thomas was the most honest of the Republicans. Bruen did require this, which is why it was a shit opinion. It has caused nothing but chaos. That was easily foreseeable from the ridiculous test he laid out. Instead of admitting that and reverting back to the tiers of scrutiny used for other rights, the other Republicans "clarified" Bruen by rewriting it without providing the clarity actually needed to apply it. What a mess they're making.

 

LOL, by the time the 2A applied to the states, there were no colonists.

 

Well of course but that doesn’t mean that the folks who wrote the amendment didn’t write it with that understanding in mind because they lived through it and wanted to expressly prohibit the disarmament of people for spurious political reasons.

 

Well, if we're being technical, the Federalists created the Second Amendment as a form of political compromise with the Anti-Federalists. James Madison, who originally opposed a declaration of rights, drafted what became the Bill of Rights and was the driving force behind getting the First Congress to approve them and send them to the states for ratification.

Madison pushed hard for it in part because Patrick Henry, a political rival, gerrymandered him into a Congressional seat with a heavy Anti-Federalist base and partly out of fear that the Anti-Federalists would secure a second constitutional convention absent this compromise. The Constitution was Madison's baby, and he didn't want the Anti-Federalists unwinding his grand achievement.

Somewhat humorously considering what they've become, Madison viewed the Bill of Rights as mere parchment guarantees. He saw their value as being educational in nature, reminding the people of the rights they possessed. At this time, he did not see the Constitution as an archival text with a fixed meaning. The Second Amendment was a nod to the Anti-Federalists who opposed a strong federal government. It was meant to calm their fears that the federal government would disarm the state militias.

(This is without even getting into how Madison misled people about the Bill of Rights. He intentionally selected proposed amendments that wouldn't fundamentally change the Constitution he designed. Madison passed those off as the amendments that had the most support when in reality, there were numerous structural changes to the Constitution that the Anti-Federalists favored that he intentionally omitted.)

 

Add the love afair of guns to issues I have with my former party.

 

Whether he viewed it as necessary or not, Madison, nor any other of the founders, desired disarmament of the people for political expediency, which was Thomas’ point. Saying people who are not dangerous (a negative condition) should be allowed to keep and bear arms is a different thing than saying people who are dangerous should not be able to keep and bear arms. The former does not also necessarily imply the latter (e.g. it would be ridiculous to say that “citizens should be able to keep and bear arms” and take that to mean those who are not citizens should not be allowed to keep and bear arms. The former is certainly true, but (putting aside government endorsed sexism in our history) the latter does not necessarily follow, at least not without some additional definition around what would disqualify someone. You could naturally extend the same argument to other fundamental rights (“e.g. people who are religious should be able to go to church” does not imply non-religious people should be automatically barred from doing so).

Point being that Madison, regardless of his motivation surrounding authoring the second, would almost certainly object to any fundamental right, including and especially the right to keep and bear arms, being denied on political grounds under the pretense that dissidents were “dangerous” merely based on the positions or people they support so as to keep power vested in the ruling class.

 

I expect he would. The real question is would Madison support the aggressive judicial aggrandizement that Thomas has pushed in relation to Second Amendment jurisprudence? While Thomas claims to be an originalist, that "originalism" extends only so far.

What's interesting to me is there's a much better argument for Thomas's aggressive approach to the Second Amendment based on the Reconstruction Amendments. But the SCOTUS "originalists" haven't been so keen on faithfully interpreting those amendments. It's not surprising. They're conservative, while the framers of the Reconstruction Amendments were very liberal.

 

So blindingly obvious. The history and tradition test is evil nonsense

 

Hold on. I replied to a poster or two who expressly stated that USA was a "shithole country" and, once replied to, they doubled down with further disparagement of USA. In the above, you state that "[t]here's no dispute that America is a great country." Shouldn't that comment be addressed to the other posters along with your invitation to rationalize/define who "really" loves and serves our country? Yet, you exclaim a conclusion that my "indignation prevents [me] from thinking like a lawyer should"? You've missed a couple steps in your analysis ("show your work"). In any event, I suspect your consternation is actually derived from me "thinking like a lawyer should" and not your conjured accusation of "indignation."