Moreover, the Reply Brief is an extended exercise in question begging and special pleading. The District of Columbia not a state. The Second Amendment is at its high tide in D.C., not at its ebb. To assert otherwise, and cite a Laurence Tribe op-ed for the assertion, is a true act of desperation, given how many cases before the Supreme Court Laurence Tribe has lost.

Besides, the library of congress search engine is hardly the last word on finding references to words or wording in the collection. Its not a search engine of the complete text but a search of upper level words. For example, I found under Military Affairs, 1810, Pg 264 a reference to the possibility that men would use publicly supplied arms “for gunning.” But when you type this phrase into the search engine, all you’ll find are references to Bedford Gunning.

In that same regard, I just tried the exact phrase Bear arms in the Library of Congress search engine and got 100 hits, not the 42 of this gentleman. Under Borne Arms I had 35 more hits for the exact phrase and under Bore Arms 18 hits. In the end however looking in a database of government documents can hardly be the best place to look for references to any of these phrases in a more domestic context. Its like looking for medical references in an engineering text book.

Nathan Kozuskanich’s Rutgers Law Journal and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law articles attempt to obfuscate this, but fail. See http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2008_03_02_archive.html#3466369651048613111 for the very serious flaws in the Journal of Constitutional Law article and http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2008_03_02_archive.html#4373283378863325154 for the Rutgers Law Journal article’s very serious problem.

The Journal of Constitutional Law paper is essentially Kozuskanich putting his fingers in his ears and screaming, “I can’t hear you” about the individual uses of “bear arms” in the period. (He has read the paper by Joe Olson and myself mentioned above, and chooses to ignore every example but two.)

The Rutgers Law Journal article is more problematic, and has apparently crossed over into academic fraud, because he cites Bellesiles’s Arming America as evidence that guns were scarce. While acknowledging that other papers “contradict” Bellesiles on this claim, he does not acknowledge that the gun scarcity claim was based on probate data falsification that caused Bellesiles to “resign” from a tenured position, and caused an unprecedented revocation of the Bancroft Prize.

The equivalent would be if Kozuskanich had cited the Hitler Diaries that were published in 1983, and then indicated that there was some question about their veracity.

I am neither a lawyer nor a historian. I must say, however that reading all these briefs has been a very useful exercise.

Also, this Blog has been of great value as well.

Regards, and thanks so much
Mike Gorman (Bowie, Maryland)

This places the individual right of private firearm use in the direct lineage of the Bill of Rights as part of the public debate.

Second, regardless of Perich Vs Department of Defense, the militia system started under the 1792 militia act was enforced for almost 50 years. Given that fact and that men in the militia at 18 only served for 27 years until they exceeded the militia age, what happened to the guns these men owned when they became too old to serve. By the arguments put forward by the Bellesiles faction their homes were raided and their property taken without compensation. Yet you would think there was some record of this.

As for the argument the gun was transfered to the man’s son, if a man had a son at 20 yrs of age he would still have seven years of service in the militia when the boy reached 18 and had to enroll. Second problem, what if he had more then one son.

Finally, in the early 1800s there was discussion in congress of changing the age for militia service. Avoiding the discussion of lowering the start age to 16 years, there was also some talk of having the men between 45 and 60 placed in an alarm grouping. If these men were not still armed would this not be a nearly impossible suggestion.

Your said:
“But no one so far has shown that there WERE drafters of the amendment concerned with personal uses of arms. They rejected language that would have done this.”

Do you a single source from the founding era saying that ONlY the people in the active duty militia have a right to keep and bear arms.

You said:
“Coxe’s article was certainly not influential as it was only ignored by most of the press. Coxe himself says that he just “threw these remarks together.” ”

How much press did the altrernate argument -that only those men in the active duty militia have a right to keep and bear arms -get?

You said:
“As for the CO provision, I think clearly supports the idea that bearing arms meant for military purposes.”

Why is that? Were Quakers ONLY opposed to militia service in defense of the state but willing to bear arms in their own defense?

You said:
“I also think that some people are misreading the brief. They’re not denying that it’s not an individually enforceable right; the question is what is the scope of the right.”

If DC accepts that Mr. Heller and the others have a right (of any scope) to keep and bear arms apart from actual service in the militia -that is news to me.

The amendment mandates that the people be armed in order to provide for a well-regulated militia because that was required to preserve a free state.

They were specifically addressing the fear that a standing army or select militia would transgress the liberty of the people.

The remedy for this was to protect the right of the whole body of the people to keep and bear arms.

Yes, it is all about the militia. We the People comprise the militia whether we enroll in a state militia or not. Private arms ownership and use of said arms to gain proficiency is protected by the amendment.

Don’t like it, repeal it and face the consequences.

Coxe’s article was certainly not influential as it was only ignored by most of the press. Coxe himself says that he just “threw these remarks together.”

As for the CO provision, I think clearly supports the idea that bearing arms meant for military purposes.

I also think that some people are misreading the brief. They’re not denying that it’s not an individually enforceable right; the question is what is the scope of the right.