Over at Smallest Minority, Kevin has a couple of posts on and in response to the comments of a history professor named Cornell. Prof. Cornell basically says the 2nd Amendment means that someone may bear arms only as part of a militia unit, that there is no individual right to arms, the group he's part of (Second Amendment Research Center, John Glenn Institute) is only trying to help with some 'common-sense' restrictions needed for the public safety(sound familiar?) and so forth. Kevin's reply is long, fact-filled and comprehensive. I'll not excerpt from it, it ought to be read in its entirety. I will include this:
"(Citizenship) "would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citazens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State." (My emphasis)"
That's from the Dred Scott case, one of the worst decisions to ever come out of the Supreme Court. It specifically denied fundamental rights to a whole people. But it a way, it's useful; it lists just what a lot of people were scared of blacks having equal access to.
As they say, read the whole thing.
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