Reply #165

But you're missing the point.

I am talking specifically about the legal history of gun control in the United States, not who signed what treaty in what year and other facts and information unrelated to gun rights.

Did you know that the Framers of the 14th Amendment wrote specifically to allow black people, along with other citizens, to individually carry arms? Did you know that they specifically wrote the language of the Amendment to overturn a ruling saying that blacks couldn't carry arms? Did you know that they explicitly set out to protect the personal, individual right to keep and bear arms? Did you know that they explicltly protected that right from the state —not, as many would have it, only when one is in a militia under control of the state? Did you know that that purpose was announced on the floor of the Senate as the Amendment was introduced? Did you know that the introductory speech was published in the major papers of the day, either in its entirety or as a gloss, and that it was debated nationwide? Did you know that both its opponents and its supporters acknowledged that the 14th Amendment would protect the right of individual blacks as well as everyone else to carry arms?

Those are factual claims, not mere "observations." Do you doubt them? Do you have other facts that show that the collective right theory expressed in the OP is correct?

If you knew that history, just as a small sampling, why did you post the OP?