Reply #7: Second Amendment is not an indvidual right

[Gothmog]

There are two cases on this subject. One is an extremely poorly written decision out of the Fifth Circ. that holds that there is an individual right but that it is such a weak right that is okay to prohibit all men getting a divorce in Texas with the standard pretrial divorce orders from possessing a handgun during the divorce.

The better law is the case from the Nineth Cir. See http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1039054410124 The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled that there is no individual right to gun possession, holding that only state-run militias have a constitutional right to bear arms.

Weaving together historical arcana, legal opinions both obscure and well-known, and scores of scholarly articles, the court issued a 69-page magnum opus interpreting the 27 words of the Second Amendment in a way that contradicts a recent federal appellate court decision and the opinion of the attorney general of the United States.

"The debates of the founding era demonstrate that the second of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution was included in order to preserve the efficacy of the state militias for the people's defense -- not to ensure an individual right to possess weapons," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote.