Originalists think of the Constitution and Bill of Rights as a contract that was created between the people and the government.
If you were to enter into a contract today, would you want it interpreted 100 years from now differently than you intended at the time it was signed?
The 2nd Amendment is telling the government that the people can use any arm that they deem fit to protect themselves against crime or tyrannical governments. The existing government can be killed, removed, and replaced if they don’t do what the people want.
I love contract law. Most litigation involving contracts arises because of changed conditions, unanticipated expenses or delays, failures to perform all the requirements under the contract, etc. Any one of these things can be used to argue that the original contract should not be in effect.
Consider when a supplier breaches an agreement to send you certain bikes. Are you still required to pay for the bikes? What if the government breaches its duty to promote life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens? What if new deadly technology is an unanticipated changed condition? Are we required to fulfill the contract term that you believe says there can be no restrictions on guns?
There is no contract or contract term that is like the unerring word of God. You might not like the proposed change to the contract, but you are not the only person who has entered into this contract with the government. When a majority of the people demand a change to the contract, the contract will be modified.
Whichever group has the most “firepower” gets to create the new contract.
Do you believe in the rule of law or the rule by firepower?
The rule of law is the basis for your contract arguments. If you reject the rule law, you reject the notion of an enforceable contract. You’re rejecting the Constitution itself.
This world has always been controlled by those with the most “firepower”.
The biggest, baddest caveman would knock some of the other dudes out and take whatever he wanted. If someone challenged him, they would have to knock him out or kill him to be in charge and make the rules.
Remember the Declaration of Independence:
"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security".
Before you rush to throw off the Government to secure a right added as an afterthought, you may want to slow the fuck down and consider the main point of the paragraph, bolded above at the opening of the paragraph.
The goal: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
The means: consent of the people.
When the majority of Americans want common sense gun laws to secure their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the minority who want unfettered gun rights must concede to the will/power of the majority.
You can’t seriously think you are authorized to use force by the words at the tail end of the paragraph without working through the first part of the paragraph.
Of course he can. People often grasp on to tiny phrases to justify themselves. Look at religious Snakehandlers or any number of cults.
the phrase “shall not be infringed” comes to mind.