The SCOTUS has the onus now to set the gun control debate right. The lower (D.C. appeals) court ruled correctly--as has been seen in many briefs, and other court rulings--that this is an individual right.

Emerson v. U.S. (1999), argued that the right is individual. The Clinton administration JD sought that the 5th Circuit Court rule it a collective right of the state, even though there is no mention of the state, or even the federal government within the 2A. The 5th CC ruled 2A an individual right.

Those who argue for permit systems, waiting periods,  are also barking up the wrong tree. Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Staub v. Baxley, and Cantwell v. Connecticut have all ruled that permits for rights are unconstitutional prior restraints on the individual, which means that all rights are individual.

Now, to the militia. Federal law states militia are every citizen between 18 and 45 with some officers up to 65 years of age, is a member of the militia. Militia law also requires each person to go everywhere armed, and ready to use those arms, unless there is some preemption for religious reasons (conscientious objectors).

There are two forms of militia. The organized, put together by the state, and the unorganized, which includes every individual citizen regardless of signing up to join a state's militia. The National Guard law was passed in 1903. The militia law predates it by over 100 years.

Since the militia are all persons over 18, since most every college student is over 18, or bordering on that age, they are members of the unorganized militia, As such, they are required by law to have with them, at all times, some form of firearm/armament.

Arms are considered any form of weapon to which the NG, or other organized military body might be privy, so said Tenche Coxe. He also noted these weapons were the "birthright" of every American/


Preeminent Legal Scholar, and Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe wrote, "There used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus  that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states  to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists - thanks largely  to the work over the last 20 years of several leading liberal law  professors, who have come to embrace the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns."
 "My conclusion came as something of a surprise to me, and an unwelcome surprise. I have always supported as a matter of policy very comprehensive gun control."

None other than George Washington noted, “A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” Further, he stated, "If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war."

Cesare Beccaria was a citizen of Rome during its heyday. "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."-Cesare Beccaria's quote; On Crimes and Punishment, 1764, translated by Jefferson and copied into his Commonplace Book of great quotations.

So, there is great precedent for what Sen. Bailey-Hutchison, and her colleagues, have put together.
Paul Rusin