The militia is a group of citizens called to military service in the event they are needed. The regular armed forces have the profession of arms as their job and cannot fit the definition of militia.

The Court was only asked to rule on whether the right was an individual one or one associated with involvement in the militia. They will need more lawsuits to define the rest.

but our militia is defined as all men 17-45 and all women in the National Guard so a lot of people should be carrying weapons

In that you are right (but you left off up to age 65 if in the regular military) and you failed to mention women in the national guard was added during the clinton years, so its a recent thing.

Now, you said “should” I disagree with that. Just because you have a right does not mean you should or must exercise it. People have the right to choose their religion, and some have chosen not to have one. That is their choice, and implicitly something they can choose.

The 2nd amendment states basically the government can not “infringe” upon “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”, but nowhere does it say they should or must keep and bear arms.

And really after reading the 157 page brief (I get the advantage of posting after the ruling not much changed. Scalia stated that bans on weapons, where you can have them, who can have them, are all valid so long as its not a 100% ban. A couple others joined him in that.

The dissenters pointed out that Scalia said “people” means all people not a subset, but then he also made it so that it is a subset. Something they fear will cause cases to be heard in the future challenging those laws. They also brought up the fact that ex-felons get their first and fourth amendment rights back after they are no longer incarcerated (probation, parole, halfway houses, etc are all modified forms of incarceration). They feared that a challenge may be brought there as well.

For dissenters though think about this. Murder, robbery, rape, etc are all illegal whether or not you have a gun, almost all gun crimes have another crime associated with them. Those are the real crimes being committed. Really if these people are so dangerous, why arent you petitioning the government to watch them? Shouldnt dangerous people be watched? If they arent dangerous why ensure that their “debt to society” can never be paid.

Will meaty go after them do you think? Or does the child save his vituperation for conservative sites?

That with rights come responsibilities is widely if not universally accepted. So what is the responsibility that comes with the right to keep and bear arms? It’s in the opening phrase of the Second Amendment. “Owning guns and complaining to your representatives being sufficient to the security of a free state,…” Right? Well that’s what most gun owners and the NRA seem to think.

For any who wish to take seriously the responsibility that comes with the right to keep and bear arms, I’d like to invite you to explore today’s militia at http://www.awrm.org. We might surprise you, especially if you still believe what the mainstream media and groups like the SPLC say about us.

Peace