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Argument: If 2nd amendment applied only to militias it would be useless today

Issue Report: DC handgun ban

Issue Report: Right to bear arms in the US

Supporting quotes

  • Oral arguments in DC vs. Heller – “JUSTICE GINSBURG: — short of that, just to get your position clear, short of reactivating State militias, on your reading does the Second Amendment have any effect today as a restraint on legislation?
MR. DELLINGER: It would, Justice Ginsburg, if the State had a militia and had attributes of the militia contrary to a Federal law. And if it didn’t —
JUSTICE GINSBURG: But it doesn’t, as far as I know.
MR. DELLINGER: As far as I know, today it doesn’t. And I’m not — and the Respondents make that, that argument that the amendment is without a use. But you don’t make up a new use for an amendment whose prohibitions aren’t being violated. I mean –”