Everybody knows "shall not be infringed" doesn't really mean that, but was instead a call for "experimentation." Why, the finest legal minds and oodles of precedent all agree. Besides, the petitioner didn't say the right incantation. So there.
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It has come to the point in Tennessee that the Attorney General is grasping for something to hold onto regarding the prohibition of the carrying of arms. I've read the 1871 Tennessee Supreme Court decision Andrews v State many times, I'm not sure if the AG read it before quoting from it. Andrews contended that a State law which prohibited the carry of all arms was unconstitutional. The Andrews court agreed. "In a word, as we have said, the statute amounts to a prohibition to keep and use such weapon for any and all purposes. It therefore, in this respect, violates the constitutional right to keep arms, and the incidental right to use them in the ordinary mode of using such arms and is inoperative." Part of the decision in Andrews was overturned by McDonald in that the Second Amendment is now an individual right and that it is now incorporated. The Legislature responded to the decision by passing a law allowing the carry of the army or navy pistol openly in the hand. The law stood until 1989 when the Legislature passed the current law which criminalizes the carry of loaded handguns.
ReplyDeleteSorry. But "shall not be infringed" means exactly that to me. Which translates to "Hands off my damn guns, you f*#&ing tyrants!"
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