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Originally Posted by Ghost1958
Where in the 2A does it in any way even hint the gov or a court has authority to regulate guns.
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The text of the amendment doesn't permit any infringement (interestingly, it isn't stated as a mere prohibition on Congress).
I am sympathetic to a broad application of the language, but that doesn't end the inquiry.
The 1st Am. contains the language that "Congress shall make no laws..." pertaining to the subject of that amendment, yet Congress makes laws restricting campaign speech; some survive challenge while some don't. The commerce clause restricts the matters Congress can regulate very plainly...interstate commerce, but Congress regulates matters of
intrastate commerce.
One aspect of our modified common law system is that judicial resolutions serve as precedent for subsequent controversies. I don't agree with a number of those precedents because they are poorly reasoned and the reasoning may have been concocted primarily to buttress a result people preferred for extra-constitutional reasons, but they are still precedents.
To know the range of your likely successful options, you want to know not just what the COTUS language indicates, but also what the precedent on the point indicates. That doesn't even mean that the precedent is necessarily binding, but it is very likely to restrict the direction of future changes.
Sometimes you will read people arguing that "the right isn't unlimited" as an implicit assertion that the amendment doesn't prohibit
any limits. That's an over-reach that merits correction.
Arguing that the NFA violates the 2d Am. has lots of intellectual merit from several different directions. That argument also faces two currently insurmountable obstacles:
1. It has survived constitutional challenge. Yes, we all know the oddities of Miller.
2. For reasons that are not fully rational, many people want fully automatic firearms tightly regulated. That's a political obstacle you would need before making any Sup Ct reversal effective. If you didn't first overcome the political obstacle, the Sup Ct could strike the entire NFA, and you'd very soon see a wave of democrat and some republican aspirant trying to enhance their political fortunes by being seen as leaders to amend the COTUS on that and other points.
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Originally Posted by Ghost1958
So how is it in anyway moral or legal for the gov to infringe on pee existing human rights that existed before the nation or it's gov or courts existed.
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I think I answered the legal question. The moral question is more difficult.
A key part of the problem is that our government is to some degree representative. Republican and federal structure can slow public passions, the senate can cool them, a president can veto them if he has the votes, and the Sup Ct can strike a law that survives all that. However, even the Sup Ct ultimately succumbs to popular notions and is indirectly representative of the population.
That constitutional obstacle course isn't a guaranty that your neighbors won't be unwise. It just slows them down.