Cam Edwards observes that Ignorance Is Bliss when pointing out an op-ed written by a college student. The piece by Sally Sanderson in the Michigan Tech Lode:

The bottom line is this: the Constitution ensures that United States citizens have the right to bear arms, yet it does not define for what purpose. Therefore, it is left for those of us following today’s laws to decide how to interpret the words written over 200 years ago.

She uses Wikipedia(!) as her first reference and includes this:

Though [the Second] Amendment seemingly does reserve the right for individuals to bear arms, it is confusing in the way it is written. The beginning of the sentence causes one to infer that an individual can bear arms if part of a militia, which should be used to ensure “the security of a free state.” However, the second part of the statement could be interpreted differently, as: individuals’ rights to bear arms will not be taken away. According to a Web site sponsored by the United States Senate, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/amdt2.html, “there is no definitive resolution by the courts of just what right the Second Amendment protects.”

As Cam writes, she seems to be unaware of the Heller decsion.

Now, Michigan Tech is located in the near-wilderness of the Upper Penninsula, but I guess if she’s getting published on the internet, she should be able to do some research and follow a bit of news on the internet, too. (via Sebastian)

How the Second Amendment Was Restored

Brian Doherty at Reason:

In retrospect, D.C. v. Heller seems almost inevitable, because of shifting public and academic attitudes toward gun rights. But victory came only after a protracted struggle, with many pitfalls along the way. It was pulled off by a small gang of philosophically dedicated lawyers—not “gun nuts” in any stereotypical sense, but thoughtful libertarians who believe Second Amendment liberties are a vital part of our free republic. Together they consciously crafted a solid, clean civil rights case to overturn the most onerous and restrictive set of gun regulations in the country. In the process, they set the stage for further legal challenges to other firearms restrictions from coast to coast.

South Carolina will waive all sales taxes on firearms purchases made on November 28 and 29. That’s some post-Thanksgiving shopping Murdoc could get excited about.

Looking for something to read? Check out the latest Second Amendment News Roundup at the Liberty Sphere.

Over at Sebastian’s: New Jersey Gun Ban Up For Vote

On Monday, November 17, the New Jersey Assembly is scheduled to vote on A2116 — legislation banning most firearms over .50 caliber. Though previously amended in an attempt to address gun owner concerns, the legislation still bans many popular hunting guns, historical firearms, and large bore target firearms, based on alleged public safety concerns. Ironically, the legislation bans many of the guns that won the very freedoms the bill seeks to destroy, including some Revolutionary War and Civil War guns and their replicas.

What I find ironic is that we always hear about how the Founding Fathers would never have meant the Second Amendment to mean things like assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. What they meant was that firearms in use at the time of the writing of the Bill of Rights were protected.

And now New Jersey is looking to ban those very weapons. It would be interesting to look through the long and storied history of New Jersey gun bans to see how many times the “we’re just trying to ban the guns criminals use” argument was used. Now that practically everything else has been banned or very heavily restriced in the state, they’re turning to muzzle loaders.

How many crimes are committed with muzzle loaders?

Earth to NY Times: People Already Have Guns

Marie Cocco is confused when she writes that the Supreme Court

reversed the historical interpretation to discover an individual right to bear arms.

In fact, that’s not what it did. But it makes her feel better to tell the story that way, and who ever let a lie get in the way of gun reporting, anyway?

Via Soyer.

Glenn Reynolds writes something that sums up what I’ve seen as significant result of the Heller decision:

What’s most striking about Heller is that absolutely everybody — majority and dissents — says the Second Amendment protects an individual right.

It’s true that the dissenters’ view of that right is somewhere between “minimalist” (to be charitable) and “incoherent” (to be accurate). But nonetheless, all nine Justices specifically said the right is individual, and thus rejected the “collective right” position on the Second Amendment, a position that’s been the mainstay of gun-control groups, newspaper editorialists, and lower federal courts for decades, and one that was presented by those adherents as so obviously correct that those arguing for an individual right were called “frauds” and shills for the NRA.

Yet the collective right theory could not command a single vote on the Court when actually tested. It was, it seems, a paper tiger all along.

Decades of “collective right for the militia” arguments evaporated in the sunlight.

This needs to be remembered, because we’re going to be hearing dozens of new “common sense” arguments about what “keep and bear” means or if certain types of restrictions and regulations are “infringing” on rights. They’re going to argue that it’s clear that the framers never meant this kind of gun or that it was okay to carry it there or use it for that purpose.

They’re going to tell us that it’s obvious that the 2nd Amendment means one thing, when a trip down memory lane to June 26th, 2008 will remind everyone that what they had previously told us it meant was completely and totally wrong and had been all along.

Yesterday I posted on Chicago suburb Wilmette suspending its gun ban, and now another one, Morton Grove, has done the same thing.

This seems good, but beware Chicagoland politicians bearing gifts. Rivrdog writes Gun law “Moratoriums” will outflank Heller and there’s no reason to think that the banners will go quietly into the night.

The battle has not ended. It’s merely changed.

Instapundit on the op-ed page of the New York Post: Winner’s Test

I confess that I was one of the Second Amendment scholars who doubted that there were five votes on the high court to support an individual-right view of the Second Amendment.

I’m happy to be wrong about that, but there were only five such votes - demonstrating how narrow the margin was, and how out of touch the court is with the American public, which believes the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms by a 3-1 margin.

If, as some have been calling for, we had a “Supreme Court that looks like America,” this case wouldn’t even have been close. Ordinary Americans have generally believed that the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” applied to, you know, the people.

It takes politicians, law professors (and, it turns out, four Supreme Court justices) to believe that a “right of the people” somehow actually doesn’t belong to the people at all.

Now, I doubt that many (if any) of the people reading GunPundit subscribe to the non-individual view of the 2nd Amendment. And all of us probably think that the individual view is simply “common sense.” As Reynolds says, about 75% of Americans think that way.

But 25% don’t, and a lot of them are in positions of power.

Reynolds’ larger point is that, now that Heller has been won, can the ball be kept rolling?

I think it can, for sure. It’s not like Heller was a bolt out of the blue in the gun control debate. Concealed carry and castle doctrine have both been growing nationwide for a couple of decades. The Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to sunset without too much of a fight. The Heller decision is really more of a final chapter in the opening sequence of the battle, not the beginning of the battle.

But there is no time to congratulate ourselves or pat ourselves on the back. The first round has been won and the opponent is reeling, but they are far from defeated. They have always played a long-view game, and until recently they played it well. They’ll be regrouping quickly, and I doubt that many of the battles in places like Chicago or California are going to be as easy as some seem to think.

Meanwhile, other efforts by our opponents are still underway, such as the effort to strictly regulate ammunition purchases, put an end to gun shows as we know them, and reinstate the bans on “assault weapons.” These are very dangerous campaigns, and the Heller decision is going to do little, if anything, to slow them.