HELD: The Second Amendment confers an INDIVIDUAL right to keep and bear arms
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation 2 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER Syllabus of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.
To the Gun Banners such as "The Brady" crowd: YOU ARE WRONG.
To those who lost loved ones at VTech, at Columbine, and elsewhere due to nutjobs showing up with guns and opening up on innocents - you have the right to defend yourselves, and if the government had not interfered with that right prior to these events, and someone had been armed, your loved ones might still be alive.
To those who think that "violence is not the answer" - when someone else is hellbent on killing you, it is the ONLY answer short of your death.
To the cities of Chicago and Morton Grove, along with many others: fuck you. You were wrong then and now your unconstitutional bans on firearm ownership are void. Oh, and God Bless Bessie Jones.
To those who think that the Second Amendment is about hunting or self-defense, in the main: FUCK YOU. The Supreme Court just told you in blunt fucking english what I and others have said all along - The Second Amendment exists for the express purpose of insuring that should GOVERNMENT ever become so oppressive that armed revolution is necessary, the people will have the means to prosecute it.
Those of you who have refused to understand that the writings of our Founders found in The Federalist and The Antifederalist made this very point over 200 years ago have now had it explained to you by the Men and Women in Robes on the US Supreme Court.
The very presence of this right is the reason why we do not today need to use it for its original intended purpose, and why, so long as the Second Amendment stands, we are unlikely as Americans to ever suffer a government so oppressive as to require its use.
We have four boxes that guard our freedom in this nation:
The Soapbox
The Ballot Box
The Jury Box
And finally, if and only if the other three fail, the ammunition box.
In short, it is GOOD that a government fear its people's right and ability to overthrow it, as that is one of the prime reasons that the sort of outrageous conduct that would give rise to such an event will not happen so long as the right and ability do enforce that capacity exist.
Congratulations Anton Scalia and others in the majority.
You got this one right.
