Note that the aforementioned historians are different from the "Academics" group that filed an excellent brief. Not only does it have legal utility, but it's a very fast way for "pro-gun" types to increase their understanding of the purpose of an armed populace -- and from there, all the other disarmament dominoes fall.

Mr. Young's argument assumes a basic understanding of how our government works on the part of the reader. That may be a mistake.

Quote:
"Mason's Bill of Rights, including the two-clause version of the Second Amendment he developed, was the model that all four of the last ratifying conventions relied on in developing their bills of rights. It was the provisions of Mason's Bill of Rights, understood by Madison as protecting the great and essential rights, which Madison specifically promised to support and actually took to Congress as the foundation of the first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution."


I hope that the disarmer and anti-liberty activist does not come away with the impression that the Federalists' opposing view was that the populace should be disarmed or without any of the other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. It was more a question of trust. After all, what harm could there be when the federal government could exercise only the powers enumerated in the Constitution, and with such a strict process for amending it?

The anti-liberty crowd proposes a novel concept that all powers and rights originate from the federal government. When one promotes this idea, it is helpful that his arguments are unimpeded by the historical record.