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Hold up: Let's remember that when first made the US Constitution contained limits that only applied to what the new Federal Government could do. (The Articles o
by Terr_ 2y ago
Hold up: Let's remember that when first made the US Constitution contained limits that only applied to what the new Federal Government could do. (The Articles of Confederation being a failed beta-test.)
Before-vs-After the 14th amendment, a lot of comparisons automatically become apples-to-oranges. The people who crafted and ratified the Bill of Rights in 1791 simply were not operating in a world where those rules had nearly as much interaction/overlap with the 13 different State-level constitutions.
- Terr_ 2y agoP.S.: Tangentially, this leads me to my "I get both sides angry at me" view about what the framers originally intended the Second Amendment to do. * For the less-gun folks: It creates zero rights to own a gun if you didn't already, since per-state laws took precedence. It merely prevented the federal government from indirectly disarming entire states in a sneaky way. In addition, the status-quo definition of "militias" [0] were forces commanded by state-appointed officers and supplied from state funds. * For the more-gun folks: Individual states were required to supply those militias with weapons that are significantly stronger than mere personal defense, such as small cannons ("field pieces") that could be towed by a horse. [1] I imagine the modern version would be a machine-gun on a pickup-truck. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation [1] https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/new-education-project-takes-aim-at-revolutionary-war-artillery/ https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/new-education-pr...