supreme court wrong: no individual right to a gun versus state

My opponent argues that the term 'to bear arms' is a military term, which is frankly incorrect. The English Common Law from which the right to bear arms derives references this as an individual right. [13,14,21] The origin of the argument that the term is military in origin comes from a long list of selection biased articles studying government writings only.[13] In this case it is only when the phrase 'to bear arms' is unmodified. Except, that in the 2nd Amendment, it is modified, by the phrase 'the right of the people' which in every other case in the same document refers to an individual right. Warren Burger may have considered it 'a fraud on the American public' but given the very words of the men who were there, and who wrote the document. Both Madison and Mason agreed the public were the militia, but Madison the man who was the primary drafter of the Bill of Rights claimed that the purpose of this bill was to protect individual rights.[15] No further arguments need be made, the man who is primarily credited with the 2nd Amendment, in fact all of the first ten, was drafting them to protect the individual's rights, not collective rights. Perhaps if Justice Burger had read all of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers he would have had a better understanding. I don't personally think more proof is needed, both the men who drafted the document claim it is about individual rights, but let us look at the others, those men who were around the issue at the time, may have thought. Samuel Adams "The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." William Grayson "... string of amendments were presented to the lower House; these altogether respected personal liberty." Two more, of the literally dozens of men, who presided over the states ratification of the Bill of Rights proclaiming that the rights it protects are individual rights. In almost every case, the men who were responsible for the Bill of Rights, passage or writing, agree that these protect the individual. Proving every single link my opponent provided in their opening arguments to be based on personal opinion rather than the political fact of the time. Essentially every existing court case, was based on an under-educated opinion by people who had no frame of reference or familiarity with the subject matter. On to my opponent's round 2 Comments, They open up with a false dilemma, "the bill of rights is an indictment against the federal government. why does the second suddenly apply to the states? the only way it could is if it was incorporated as a civil right by the 14th amendment. if you have to resort to that, you are basically admitting that the amendment doesn't guarantee rights on its own merit as suggested. " First the Bill of Rights doesn't 'guarantee' any rights, it protects from federal incursion a right that already existed. Most states already had some version of this on their own constitutions. [16, 17, 18] The outcome of the Civil War, changed a few things, one of which is it prohibited states from acting against the federal government in matters of civil rights. So yes the 14th Amendment did change something, just not what you think. It was possible before the 14th for a state, in its own constitution, to have no provision for arms at all, afterwards the 14th made the federal provision the guiding stone for the states. In other words, the right existed and the federal government couldn't impose upon it, many states had a similar provision in their own constitutions, but they could still enact provisions of their own, until passage of the 14th. Now keep in mind that some restrictions would have been in violation of the state's own constitutions as well. Further from my opponent : " , i dont see it as such a fundamental of a right like something like speech. " That is nothing more than your opinion. Many, as much as 1/3 of the population of the United States, do see it as a fundamental right. More importantly the founders of our nation did see it as a fundamental right. As such, when the constitution was written, it was a fundamental right. The militia clause is clearly not a modification clause, but an explanatory clause, it gives one of the reasons the limitation exists, not a precursor for who is protected. The who is protected part comes in the next section. Again, a militia being protected isn't a big deal, there would be no reason to have a 2nd Amendment if the protection is for a militia. [19,20,22] As to the history of 'second amendment jurisprudence' , yes I do ignore these claims, outright. Just as every single one of them ignored what is obvious by simply reading the history of the founding of the nation, and those men who were there when the drafts of the Bill of Rights were made. Judges can, and often do, get it wrong, which is an important consideration when discussing the 2nd Amendment. My opponent makes the following, interesting argument, one with which I wholly agree: "how does history suddenly get it wrong but we are to trust someone interpreting it hundreds of years later?" I do not trust someone today to interpret that which was not only interpreted but openly stated by the men who wrote it, as I said above, and as Grayson said, these are individual rights. Source 13: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu... Source 14: http://www.americanbar.org... Source 15: http://bearingarms.com... Source 16: https://www.cga.ct.gov... Source 17: https://malegislature.gov... Source 18: http://sos.ga.gov... Source 19: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com... Source 20: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com... Source 21: http://papers.ssrn.com... Source 22: http://www.constitution.org...