mcp1810

So how would the legislators make their will known other than by using plain language as it was understood by the common people? Are you saying that all of the legislation of that time was written in a secret code that only the legislators themselves and other members of their secret handshake club would understand?

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"And what would you do with your brain if you had one?" - Dorothy

press1280

So, he's trying to register a low capacity machine gun in DC's eyes? You know there are some revolvers that hold more than 7 rounds also..........
I wonder how fast they could get back into Federal court with this one? These idiots will probably lose(again) at circuit court and want to appeal again to SCOTUS. They'll probably want to keep it on the slow track also since they know it won't pass muster ANYWHERE anymore.

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Everybody's got a game plan until they get hit

Jagger

I don't claim to know what the Amendment was intended to do. However, I do claim, based on the historical evidence generated as the Constitution was been made, that the lawmakers didn't write the Constitution and ratify it with the understanding it would be interpreted by applying the principle of construction espoused by Justice Scalia.


*****************


Justice Scalia’s Methodology Of Constitutional Interpretation Is Just An Excuse For His Judicial Activism

In the excerpt below, from the U. S. Supreme Court's opinion in the case of D. C. v. Heller, authored by Justice Scalia, the notorious judicial activist announces his intention to follow a rule of constitutional construction which dictates that the words of the Constitution should be understood in the sense of their normal and ordinary use by ordinary citizens of the founding generation.

The Second Amendment provides: “A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.” In interpreting this text, we are guided by the
principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood
by the voters; its words and phrases were used in
their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical
meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731
(1931); see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824).
Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic
meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that
would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the
founding generation...

Scalia is incompetent. The Constitution wasn't made with the lawmaker's understanding that it would be interpreted according to the normal and ordinary use of words by ordinary citizens of the founding generation.

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, knew that there were well established common law rules of interpretation and that they applied to the U. S. Constitution.

The question now before us renders it necessary to pay particular attention to that part of the second section which extends the judicial power "to controversies between a State and citizens of another State." It is contended that this ought to be construed to reach none of these controversies excepting those in which a State may be plaintiff. The ordinary rules for construction will easily decide whether those words are to be understood in that limited sense.

--John Jay in his opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793)

Scalia need to quit the Court, go back to law school and learn the fundamentals of the common law at the time the Constitution was made.

Jagger

You can't properly rephrase language until you properly interpret it. You will never ascertain the will of the lawmakers unless you apply the rules of construction they assumed, understood and took for granted would be used for that purpose.

Under the well established common law rules of construction, there was an objective method of ascertaining the will of the lawmakers. It did not include a rule about reading the writings and personal diaries of anyone.

Maybe they did, or maybe they didn't. Either way, there was a well established common law method of interpreting laws and the lawmakers took for granted that they applied to the Constitution.

When I see Scalia, and his pinko fellow travelers on the Court, interpreting the Constitution according to their personal views instead of applying the well established common law method of interpreting laws existent at the time the Constitution was made, I know they're going to legislate from the bench.