The Hawaii Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion on Wednesday declaring that its state constitution grants individuals absolutely no right to keep and bear arms outside the context of military service. Its decision rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, refusing to interpolate SCOTUS’ shoddy historical analysis into Hawaii law. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the ruling on this week’s Slate Plus segment of Amicus; their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Well yeah, a militia is a bunch of armed people with a goal.
A well regulated one knows how to use those weapons effectively, and as a group. In my opinion the law as it stands falls short of the mandate: The US should provide public weapons training and make sure its citizens know what the hell they’re doing. That might actually save a few lives that are currently lost to accidents.
The USA should just do what many other countries do: universal compulsary military service for a time during early adulthood. That’d meet the mandate.
We have the man who wrote those words expanding upon them to say what he meant, and you’re still saying “actually he meant something else.”
I’m saying the words that made it into the bill of rights he championed explicitly say more than that, probably because it was written by James Madison and then cut down by Congress.