Corpus Delicti

As Josh Blackman and James C. Phillips once noted, for example, if you checked a corpus for uses of the verb “to read,” you’d probably find far more examples of people reading newspapers than of people reading street signs — but the low frequency of street-sign references would tell you nothing of importance. It would merely reveal that people read newspapers more than they read street signs, or at least more frequently discuss reading newspapers. A law forbidding people “to read,” or a constitutional provision giving them a right to, would presumably apply to street signs (and nutritional labels and ancient scrolls) just as much as it applied to newspapers. [More]

So how many angels can dance on the head of a pin again?

All this hair-splitting ignores widely available thoughts on the matter from the Founders that leave no doubt as to exactly what they had in mind.

And where does the Constitution have the authority to "give" rights?

[Via Michael G]