Fake Originalism and the Right to Bear Arms

The U.S. Constitution’s 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 some respects, the meaning of this provision is open to legitimate debate. But one question is answered with perfect clarity by the constitutional text. The Second Amendment protects the right both to keep and to bear arms. Or so one would think. Recently, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit effectively expunged the right to bear arms from the text. Remarkably, the court purported to base this expungement on the original meaning of the Constitution.

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