Lie One: “[T]he Supreme Court first declared an individual right to gun ownership” in Heller. Nonsense. From Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856):
“It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to … keep and carry arms wherever they went.”Lie Two: “[T]he court was creating an individual right to gun ownership that it was not clear the Constitution granted.”
We see the Sanford court made the same false presumption, which was since corrected in the 1876 U.S. v. Cruikshank case and cited in Heller. Note that even though Cruikshank was ultimately overruled in part, one fundamental truth pertaining to the Second Amendment remains intact:
“This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”
U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “When the Supreme Court first declared an individual right to gun ownership more than a decade ago, the court’s conservative majority relied on founding-era legal history to invalidate a D.C. law banning firearm possession in the home,” legal affairs “reporter,” Ann E. Marimow writes, relying on ubiquitous talking points and reader ignorance to perpetuate a lie. “Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller drew fire from some conservatives who said the court was creating an individual right to gun ownership that it was not clear the Constitution granted.”
That’s two lies. I’ll get to them both in a second.
The intent, of course, is a renewed effort to resurrect a pre-Heller gun-grabber argument that said the Founders never intended for the Second Amendment to apply to individuals, but only to a “well regulated militia.” That used to be the main argument the antis used, and one they presented to the court only to see it rejected. For a while, they grudgingly acknowledged the court’s individual rights finding and focused on exploiting Justice Antonin Scalia’s wholly unnecessary concessions on rights not being absolute and thus subject to calculated infringements. But now, the antis are back doing a full-court press trying to invalidate that decision and revive the “collective right” meme.
Now back to the two lies.
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