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Comment by a4a4a4a4 | Hacker News Reader

How do you feel about showing ID to buy guns? Or pay for a firearms license/ mandatory training? (Also a constitutional right)

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The constitution ascribes the right to keep and bear arms to "the People."

Constitutional protections to voting explicitly apply to "citizens." This is why American Samoans, non-citizen US Nationals born in the US, can own a gun but (usually) not vote in the mainland.

If voting applied to "people" instead of "citizens" then the ID would make no sense. It's pretty insane to compare determining if someone is a citizen to determining if they are a person.

I think we’re in agreement.

I knew the exact (non)answer I’d get from the other poster based on their other comments.

Technically only a right to hear them as part of a militia - the idea of blanket freedom was a revisionist take popularized many years after the Founder’s era - but to be clear I’m of the opinion that national ID cards should be freely available to everyone, no harder than getting to a post office.

That, too, is a revisionist take. Sure, earlier commentary concentrated on advantages of the militia, especially verses a standing army. But there is only limited discussion of the scope of the right prior to the 20th century. It was only with the development of federal regulation of guns with the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 that the question of whether or not the militia clause limited the right began to be discussed.

There was less discussion about the second amendment itself because it was so linked to the militias in common understanding. Early American cities and states had laws restricting storage, banning concealed carry, requiring registration and/or taxation, etc. One really important thing to keep in mind is the distinction between what a rich, white property owner could do (i.e. not only own guns but be expected to furnish supplies for the militia in which they were likely an officer) and what, say, a poor or black person was allowed to do even though they were ostensibly equal under the law.

I'm not saying there wasn't plenty of allowed activities but that the concept of this being an unrestricted right goes back to roughly the second half of the previous century.

>the concept of this being an unrestricted right goes back to roughly the second half of the previous century.

From a federal perspective this is laughably disingenuous. The strongest federal gun control is the GCA and NFA. In 1920 you could mail order a machine gun.

The bill of rights weren't even fully incorporated to apply to the states until later in the republic, such as when the 14th amendment was passed. So it's disingenuous to characterize 19th century restrictions as representations of statutes in compliance the 2nd, when the 2nd didn't even necessarily apply to local/state governments at that time.

Again, the point is that for the first couple centuries it was not considered controversial that there could be restrictions. People might disagree on the exact details but few people thought there couldn’t be any restrictions prior to that becoming a major political rallying point in the late 1970s.

Have you seen the sorry excuses for “historical precedent” that NYS dug up for Antonyuk v Hochul?

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/new-york-gun-law-temp...

This was filed by the State. Search the word “negro” to find their justification for character references.

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/11/07/preliminary-injunction-...

For a summary and explanation.

If you read any scholar pre 1900, you'll find that all of them understood as in no uncertain terms that it is a individual right unconnected to participation in a militia. The collective rights understanding is a complete fabrication of the 20th century.

No, that's why they said it is the "right of the militia to keep and bear arms."

If they wanted it to apply to people, unconnected to the militia they would have said "the right of the People to keep and bear arms."

Wait...

Read the founders, DC v Heller and this Twitter thread https://twitter.com/MorosKostas/status/1523800762706325504.

Another point you completely mis-quoted the amendment. It states

> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Yes, that was the joke. Note that notch656a has posted pro-2A comments elsewhere in this hellthread.

Ah missed that. Thanks.

Which scholars are you basing this on? I'd recommend checking out Lawrence D. Cress's “Citizens in Arms” and Saul Cornell's “A Well-Regulated Militia”. It's nowhere near as simple as the unrestricted gun activists tend to portray it.

This Lawyer has been documenting text in this Twitter thread https://twitter.com/MorosKostas/status/1523800762706325504

Unconstitutional.

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