WHAT DOES THE SECOND AMENDMENT MEAN TODAY?
Abstract: A growing body of scholarship argues that the Second Amendment protects a right of individuals to possess firearms, regardless of whether those individuals are organized in state militias. Proponents of the individual right view do not merely disagree with those who champion the competing view that the Second Amendment poses few if any obstacles to most forms of gun control legislation by the state or federal governments. They appear to believe that the Second Amendment has been subject to uniquely shabby treatment by the courts and, until recently, academic commentators. This Article argues that the Second Amendment has not been unfairly orphaned. The courts and commentators that reject the individual right scholars’ claims are justified in doing so by the application of the same criteria of interpretation commonly applied to other constitutional provisions, including: doctrine; text; original understanding; structural inference; post-adoption history; and normative consider
