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"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Journalist/historian Garry Wills calls supportive Second Amendment views muddled and tendentious. Their arguments replicate insurrectionist ones.
"Only madmen, one would think, can suppose that militias have a constitutional right to levy war against the United States, which is treason by constitutional definition.""Yet the body of writers who proclaim themselves at the scholarly center of the Second Amendment's interpretation say that a well-regulated body authorized by the government is intended to train itself for action against the government."
He added that "Perhaps it is the quality of their arguments that makes them hard to take seriously."
In 2008, a District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court amicus curiae submitted by 15 prominent academics and writers concluded as follows:
"Historians are often asked what the Founders would think about various aspects of contemporary life. Such questions can be tricky to answer.""But as historians of the Revolutionary era we are confident at least of this: that the authors of the Second Amendment would be flabbergasted to learn that in endorsing the republican principle of a well-regulated militia, they were also precluding restrictions on such potentially dangerous property as firearms, which governments had always regulated when there was 'real danger of public injury from individuals.' "
Law Professor David C. Williams says Second Amendment interpretation reflects myths about America. The framers believed in unity, he said.
Modern interpreters endorse distrust and disunity, he believes. The Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms only as part of a united and consensual people, he stresses.
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