Now that Scalia has died, are gun-lovers feeling...

[beevul]

96. It really wasn't.

"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege." Wilson v. State of Arkansas (1878)

The collective rights interpretation was a construct of those with an agenda, one which can not be legally argued as meshing with the text of amendment 2, or the nuts and bolts function of the bill of rights, and can not fit within the process of rights versus powers as we know and understand them in American jurisprudence.

To believe the collective rights theory one must ignore all of the above, in addition to believing that in spite of the fact that 40 plus state constitutions recognize the right of the people to keep and bear arms, that the framers who had just fought a war which was sparked by the british trying to confiscate arms, decided to restrict rights to a group instead of individuals, at a time where privately owned fully outfitted and armed warships was well known and approved of.

It doesn't even pass the smell test, let alone pass any legal discussion.