[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

Yep, it protects the right to have a handgun in the home. At the moment, we come to a full stop right there.

I disagree. I don't think we come to a full stop at "handgun in home."

The broader issue decided in Heller was the question of whether the 2A guarantees an individual right to [___] arms, or only a collective right nebulously linked to service in a militia that most people don't even know still exists (on paper, anyway). The answer was that it is an individual right. That alone is (IMHO) HUGE!

Beyond that, the "in the home" limitation is not much of a limitation, although I readily acknowledge that some lower courts are misinterpreting it and using it as a limit. Mr. Scalia's majority opinion did NOT in any way state that the 2A RKBA is limited to keeping a functional firearm in the home. The case before the court was about Washington's ban on functional firearms in the home, so that was necessarily a focal point in the discussion.

However, once you get beyond that, there is simply no escaping that the 2A does not discuss two separate, distinct rights: one a right to "keep" arms, and another, separate right to "bear" arms. The language is clear and straightforward: "The right [singular] of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

All the dicta in both Heller and McDonald discuss "the" RKBA as a single right -- which, by the language of the 2A, it is.

What is up for discussion now is not whether or not we have a right to bear arms outside the home, but only the extent to which the states may regulate that right.

And McDonald wasn't really about handguns in the home. McDonald was about whether the 2A constrains only the Federal gobvernment, or if it also constrains the states and lower levels of government. And the answer was that it DOES apply to the states. That, again, is HUGE!