Reply #16: why did the four dissenting justices in Heller say....... [View All]

Because as Justice Stevens wrote;
“The preamble to the Second Amendment makes three important points. It identifies the preservation of the militia as the Amendment’s purpose; it explains that the militia is necessary to the security of a free State; and it recognizes that the militia must be “well regulated.” In all three respects it is comparable to provisions in several State Declarations of Rights that were adopted roughly contemporaneously with the Declaration of Independence.5 Those state provisions highlight the importance members of the founding generation attached to the maintenance of state militias; they also underscore the profound fear shared by many in that era of the dangers posed by standing
armies.6 While the need for state militias has not been a matter of significant public interest for almost two centuries,
that fact should not obscure the contemporary concerns that animated the Framers. The parallels between the Second Amendment and
these state declarations, and the Second Amendment’s omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense, is especially striking in light of the fact that the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont did expressly protect such civilian uses at the time……………The contrast between those two declarations and the Second Amendment reinforces the clear statement of purpose announced in the Amendment’s preamble. It confirms that the Framers’ single-minded focus in crafting the constitutional guarantee “to keep and bear arms” was on military uses of firearms, which they viewed in the context of service in state militias.”

Re read the last two sentences.

The point being made by the dissenters in Heller, was that the second amendment ratifiers, even with the knowledge of the Pennsylvania and Vermont Declarations, chose not to use that kind of language for the second amendment.
Why?
Because the ratifiers didn’t have the same non military interests those States spelled out. The ratifiers of the 2nd Amendment had the guarantee for service in state militias as their only focus.

In other words since the authors and ratifiers of the 2nd Amendment all had knowledge of Pennsylvania and Vermont’s existing Declarations they easily could have duplicated that kind of language in the 2nd Amendment. They didn’t because the civilian or non militia protection wasn’t what they were interested in protecting. If the authors ratifiers were interested in protecting civilian non military use of arms they could have done so, they weren’t interested in what Vermont or Pennsylvania’s Declarations stated and they clearly didn’t.


I understand this is a dissent.
Do You?