For example, your supposition is that only the writers of the document have the right to interpret it.
If you assert that the only evidence that is acceptable must come from the preserved writings of a very small number of the writers and or ratifiers, and your opponent rejects that theory of interpretation, how do you persuade them that your theory of interpretation is correct?
In determining whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee
is an individual one, or some sort of collective right, the most
important word is the one the drafters chose to describe the
holders of the right—“the people.” That term is found in the
First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. It has
never been doubted that these provisions were designed to
protect the interests of individuals against government intrusion,
interference, or usurpation. We also note that the Tenth Amendment—“The powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are
reserved to the states respectively, or to the people”—indicates
that the authors of the Bill of Rights were perfectly capable of
distinguishing between “the people,” on the one hand, and “the
states,” on the other. The natural reading of “the right of the
people” in the Second Amendment would accord with usage
elsewhere in the Bill of Rights.
I have always read the 2A in that manner, as "Free State" as a political entity in a Federal Amendment is contrary to the overall meaning (the nation, not individual states).
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
and attempt to draw conclusion based on whatever evidence can be found
You will never hear me refer to original intent, because as I say I am first of all a textualist, and secondly an originalist. If you are a textualist, you don't care about the intent, and I don't care if the framers of the Constitution had some secret meaning in mind when they adopted its words. I take the words as they were promulgated to the people of the United States, and what is the fairly understood meaning of those words."
I was actually curious why Scalia didn't refer to that 1982 Senate report. Anybody have an explanation?
I was actually curious why Scalia didn't refer to that 1982 Senate report. Anybody have an explanation?
Scalia doesn't consider that mass of quotes "evidence" at all. So amassing more quotes from drafters and ratifiers. Some justices would consider the intent of the drafters and ratifiers evidence, some would not. Some would consider historical or sociological evidence, some would not.
The "conclusion" told me what Orin Hatch (if I am recalling it correctly) thought the Second Amendment meant, and I already knew what he thought.
What should we make of the fact that throughout most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the predominant understanding of the entire Constitution was that it did not protect the rights of blacks (see also: Dred Scott v. Sanford).What should we make of the fact that throughout most of the 20th century, the predominant understanding of the Second Amendment was that it did not protect individual rights?
Then Scalia perhaps is wrong.
And you would persuade him of the error of his ways how? What argument would you advance to convince him that the important evidence is the intent of the drafters and/or ratifiers?