The fallout from yesterday's Supreme Court decision will likely continue for some time and as the dust settles we have the opportunity to take a closer look at the decision.

According to Justice John Paul Stevens, the 2nd Amendment applies only to militias (and thus the second half of the amendment is purely superfluous) though in every other instance when the framers mentioned the people, such as the 10th amendment, it did indeed refer to the "people."

In any regard Stevens' contends that the true purpose of the amendment was to prevent congress from disarming the various state militias and replace them with a standing army.

Using Stevens' own logic, can it not be argued that this has already been done? After all, the Militia system was eleminated nearly 100 years ago, replaced by the National Guard, which is very much an arm of the national army bearing little resemblance (or automomy) to the
former militias they replaced.

Stevens further asserts that their is no indication that the framers ever intended to enshrine the right of self defense in the constitution. Indeed even if that were true, which it certainly is not, the 9th amendment would surely protect this long held right from the intrusion of the statists. But of course the 2nd amendment most certainly does enshrine the principle of self defense, as this was the purpose of the militia and as these bodies were composed of private citizens who regularly furnished their own weapons it would be extreemly difficult to fathom any other rational argument that is not tainted by the stain of statist thought.