Patrick J. Charles responds to my History Office Law in Mike Rappaport on Originalism, Historians, and the Second Amendment.
I don't think that Patrick Charles understood my principal criticism of Pauline Meier. I am certainly in agreement that context matters. But the question is what is the object of inquiry. And for original meaning people, the question is what the words would have meant at the time. That James Madison could have formulated an express individual right to self defense is relevant, but no more relevant than that he could have formulated an express right limited to the militia.
Put differently, even if the context suggests that the primary purpose for putting the Second Amendment into the Constitution was to protect the militia, that does not mean that is the full extent of the right. The question is not the primary purpose (but all of the purposes) and, most importantly, the full meaning.
Posted at 12:35 AM