I fail to see how a group can have rights that do not directly impute to the individuals that make up that group. This is an exercise in basic logic, not reading legal tea leaves. No long-winded or tortuous explanations are needed.

The founders expressed a need for militias because the nascent government was fearful of creating a standing army, which had traditionally been an instrument for an oppressive government to maintain its hold on power. The states, if you examine the history of their use of troops, often failed to adequately support those troops in terms of pay and equipment. As I stated before, many states fully expected their citizens to report for duty with their own weapons, at the least.

Thomas Jefferson was a chief supporter of a bill of rights, but he was not the author. James Madison drafted the original articles, which were based on the Virginia Bill of Rights written by George Mason. One of the tenets of this document was a stricture against a standing army, and the need for citizens trained in arms, forming bodies of militia.

And finally, we see that hoariest of complaints about conservatives, the dreaded H-word. Yes, we are hypocrites if we don’t function according to someone else’s ideas of consistency, and, since hypocrisy is the Most Deadly Sin, we are therefore condemned to the outer darkness, where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

WaPo: Here comes the river of blood! Blue CrabUnemployment drops some more. Not much more room to improve.What kind of "green" are we talking about?The proletarianization of doctors. StumblingTenure and non-profits. Interesting. Of course, yo…

Actually, no. The word “militia” is understood to imply a collective, not an individual, right. There’s no ambiguity there. The disagreement over whether gun ownership is a collective, or an individual, right, hinges on the words “the people.” The appeals court in this ruling decided that “the people” has an individual, not a collective, meaning. After reading the opinion, I am inclined to agree.

You will notice (or maybe you didn’t, or won’t) that I did not say I disagreed with the court’s ruling. I simply said it’s not a narrow ruling. It’s a ruling that takes a broad view of the language in the Second Amendment. Nothing inherently wrong with that. I just find it amusing (and hypocritical) that conservatives would be cheering a broad interpretation of the Constitution when it suits their ideological leanings.

The founders feared a lot more than one thing when they wrote the Bill of Rights (or when Jefferson did). That’s why there are 10 amendments, not one. And, to correct your final statement, tyrannies happen when the people (collectively and individually) not only allow, but help, their government to place itself above the law. In the context of our particular country, with its unique Constitution and Bill of Rights, tyranny happens, or tyranny threatens, when the government takes away our right to keep and bear arms, or our right to speak and write freely, or our right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure in our homes and possessions. The Second Amendment is an essential part of the Bill of Rights. The other nine are no less essential.

Most of the commentary on this ruling from liberal bloggers has been approving of the ruling. That is because, unlike neocons, liberals do not believe in cherry-picking the Bill of Rights.

This ruling is the result of a broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. In other words, legislating from the bench. I guess having strict constructionists on the bench is not so much desired by conservatives when a strict constructionist ruling would not have the result that conservatives want — eh?

So yesterday the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down one of the most idiotic and insane pieces of law in this country, the right of the Government to take away a person’s gun from his/her own home.  A federal……

The other day, in a late update, I noted the Post editorial page has accurately reported that Joe Wilson’s public claims about his trip to Niger were debunked by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, a small counterpoint to the false…