We're WEIRD. Get over it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-06-2020, 07:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: That approach might work in the USA, which is a gun-obsessed society, generally-speaking, and not likely to go much further than this anytime soon. Laws to that effect might reduce gun violence and massacres to an extent.

But it shows that the constitution needs to be consulted, but not held as a literal absolute; that adjustments and definitions of terms need to be connected to the society of the time. 

That shows you still hold your values above other values. The best solution in a dense environment may not be the best solution everywhere. We formed a social contract between the roundheads and cavaliers, and the written result was the Constitution. That social contract should not be torn asunder by arrogance. As recent events have illustrated, we occasionally need it.

(10-06-2020, 07:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: In the future, I hope the justices interpret the 2nd once again as applying to members of a militia rather than an individual right. The Court has now shifted so far to the right that this is also unlikely within a decade or two at least. Many scholars agree with me (and not with Bob) on this interpretation, and I would go even further myself, but my opinions on guns are not those of the USA's majority at present, and probably not those of the USA's founders, as Bob points out. But of course, aristocracy, slavery and other evils were also upheld by those esteemed folks.

Who's values "trump" others on this issue and others in federal courts depends now on the electoral college and the fortunes of life, death and retirement. Reforms to all of this are needed sometime in the future. If anything is to be accomplished in the next decade or two, the Court's membership will likely need to be expanded, and this is perfectly justified considering the extreme values and ideologies and the ruthless governance of today's right wing, which I assume to be a temporary anomaly that has to be brought to heel, and this also includes reducing or eliminating the senate filibuster for a while. This minority is truly heedless of values other than it's own narrow dogmas, which cause the leader's desk to function as a stone wall. The USA will continue to decline if it does not have a working government capable of making decisions on policies, which has not happened for 40 years. Such stalemate and regression is extremely unhealthy for our society.

After the reconstruction, there was a presidential election that was about as messy as the one we are heading into now. Ballot box stuffing. Voter suppression. Intimidation. Two sets of electors showed up for several of the states. They worked out a compromise. The Republicans would get the presidency. The Democrats, at the time the rural, racist southern faction, would get the south back. A law was passed that the federal military could not enforce the law, therefore they left the door open for the states and Jim Crow to run rampant. The Supreme Court passed cases that nullified the entire Bill of Rights.

In the mid 20th Century, Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP attacked each of the Jim Crow decisions one at a time…. except the Second. The militia interpretation was a relic invented by the Jim Crow court for purely racist reasons. But Marshall didn’t consider it as his axe to grind, and let that interpretation stand. It took a while before the law schools and NRA finished the job.

For over a hundred years the law schools taught the Jim Crow interpretation. Some liberal justices hostile to the intent of the founding fathers found reason to read the law sideways and stick with the racist creed. However, there is no doubt as to what the founders intended to say.