> It's a very broad application, when you consider that it is exactly the set of people who had any political rights at the moment (i.e. voting citizens), who were also deemed fit to serve.
That's very explicitly not a broad application, which was exactly my point. It's a very narrowly defined group of people who can be "trusted" to perform their militia duty. If we are to follow that original intent, we absolutely have a right to qualify those who keep and bear arms to people who can be trusted to faithfully execute their duty. This group does not includes "all the people, excluding some political officers".
I always find it amusing when the same people who argue for originalism also place all kinds of qualifiers, inferences, and mind-reading around that intent, as you have done here. If militia service wasn't an important idea to include in the wording in order to gain consensus, they wouldn't have included it. Some states wanted militias to keep slavery in check, others valued individual rights, and others yet wanted to make sure they could repel the British if they came back. It's a bit arrogant to try and assign any one motive to a diverse group like the founders.
Not that any of it matters. It's a piece of paper that's open to interpretation. Currently we are stuck with a radical interpretation, but any reasonable person can see how that policy is failing us, and the popular will exists to change it.
How much broader you can get than "anybody who can vote and hold a gun"?
FWIW, I'm not an originalist (nor right-wing in general), nor a huge fan of the constitution. I am pro-gun, but coming from the left, not from the right.
I also don't think that there are any actual originalists currently on SCOTUS, and the ones that claimed to be (like Scalia) were selectively using that excuse, but that's another story.
That's very explicitly not a broad application, which was exactly my point. It's a very narrowly defined group of people who can be "trusted" to perform their militia duty. If we are to follow that original intent, we absolutely have a right to qualify those who keep and bear arms to people who can be trusted to faithfully execute their duty. This group does not includes "all the people, excluding some political officers".
I always find it amusing when the same people who argue for originalism also place all kinds of qualifiers, inferences, and mind-reading around that intent, as you have done here. If militia service wasn't an important idea to include in the wording in order to gain consensus, they wouldn't have included it. Some states wanted militias to keep slavery in check, others valued individual rights, and others yet wanted to make sure they could repel the British if they came back. It's a bit arrogant to try and assign any one motive to a diverse group like the founders.
Not that any of it matters. It's a piece of paper that's open to interpretation. Currently we are stuck with a radical interpretation, but any reasonable person can see how that policy is failing us, and the popular will exists to change it.
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