JM, I'm not a constitutional scholar and I'm not going off for a couple of pages to become one but, surprise, surprise, I agree that the right to "keep and bear" has always meant to me you get to go home with the one you brung or the one they issued rather than it's locked in the armory and someone else has the key. I also believe the Bill of Rights was aimed at protection of individual liberty, expression, and self-betterment from the incursions of government. Too bad the founders didn't use the words "right of persons" or "right of individuals" but they used "right of the people". Could be some of them would have preferred words like freeholders or enfranchised males or the gentlemen in this room and a few who couldn't make it but they didn't and the Supreme Court has been left the task of levering the nation to and fro based on convenient, useful and even occasionally high-minded readings of their instructions.
I also think that given our self-serving attitude which takes the means (right to keep and bear) as timeless truth and tosses out the end (well-regulated militia), it's time we found a new hideout as our strict constructions appear to me to be highly selective in regard to text and reprehensibly myopic about what constitutes the general good. H. Joe uses the word levee several times in just about any way he chooses, as he is a free-speller, God bless him. I'd say the next time the levee breaks (literally) might be a dandy idea to have a levy of the possessors of the timeless rights; you could take your old Starling scarer and pull guard on a Walmart. Of course the Guard (thank em so much 'n all) could perform this collective effort but they appear to be busy elsewhere. We could call it something like Civilian Corps if that didn't offend the free-wheeling sensibilities of the noble fraternity of gun-ownership. All I got to say.
jack
