Here is what The Progressive said about District of Columbia v. Heller:
What Scalia did in his majority opinion was basically disregard the preamble about “a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.” ( here)
Here is what Justice Scalia said:
2. Prefatory Clause.
The prefatory clause reads: “A well regulated Militia,
being necessary to the security of a free State . . . .”
a. “Well-Regulated Militia.” In United States v.
Miller, 307 U. S. 174, 179 (1939), we explained that “the
Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in
concert for the common defense.” …b. “Security of a Free State.” The phrase “security of
a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security
of each of the several States as the dissent below argued,
see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10. Joseph Story wrote in his
treatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used
in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it
means the people composing a particular nation or community.”
1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference
to the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause: “The militia
is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that
the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to
individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state”
and close variations seem to have been terms of art in
18th-century political discourse, meaning a “ ‘free country’
” or free polity. See Volokh, “Necessary to the Security
of a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1, 5 (2007); see,
e.g., 4 Blackstone 151 (1769); Brutus Essay III (Nov. 15,
1787), in The Essential Antifederalist 251, 253 (W. Allen
& G. Lloyd eds., 2d ed. 2002). Moreover, the other instances
of “state” in the Constitution are typically accompanied
by modifiers making clear that the reference is to
the several States—“each state,” “several states,” “any
state,” “that state,” “particular states,” “one state,” “no
state.” And the presence of the term “foreign state” in
Article I and Article III shows that the word “state” did
not have a single meaning in the Constitution.
There are many reasons why the militia was thought to be
“necessary to the security of a free state.” See 3 Story
§1890. First, of course, it is useful in repelling invasions
and suppressing insurrections. Second, it renders large
standing armies unnecessary—an argument that Alexander
Hamilton made in favor of federal control over the
militia. Third, when the able-bodied men of
a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are
better able to resist tyranny.3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and
Operative Clause
We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with
an operative clause that creates an individual right to
keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the
history that the founding generation knew and that we
have described above. That history showed that the way
tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the ablebodied
men was not by banning the militia but simply by
taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or
standing army to suppress political opponents. This is
what had occurred in England that prompted codification
of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.
The debate with respect to the right to keep and bear
arms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was
not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was)
but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution.
During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that
the federal government would disarm the people in order
to impose rule through a standing army or select militia
was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. (23-25)
Clearly all of what Scalia wrote above “basically disregard[ed] the preamble about ‘a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.’”
Here is some more Progressive bullshit:
[T]he reactionary majority…have now conferred on individuals the right to own a handgun…
Actually, the Constitution ‘conferred’ that. If you read Scalia’s opinion, you will see that.
